NICOSIA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
United Nations Protected Area, Cyprus
2010 - 2013

exhibition

23 September – 23 October 2011

Opening: 23rd September, 7:00pm
Venue: Ledra Street/Lockmaci Buffer zone
Hours: 10am-8pm, daily (except Mondays)

Guided Tour of the exhibition: 24 September
Venue: Ledra Street/Lockmaci, Buffer Zone
Given in English by the curators and the artists
Time: 10.30-11.30am

Curators: Pavlina Paraskevaidou and Basak Senova

Artists: Vicky Pericleous, Erhan Öze, Andreas Savva, Socratis Socratous, Demetris Taliotis, Constantinos Taliotis, Orestis Lambrou, Özge Ertanın, Oya Silbery. Zehra Sonya, Görkem Müniroglu, Emre Yazgın

Designers: Xenios Symeonides and Gökçe Sekeroglu in collaboration with NOMAD

Artist booklets: Erhan Öze (Booklet #1) and Zehra Sonya (booklet #2)

first phase

For the first phase, after a research process by the curators, 8 project proposals of the Cypriot artists were selected by the curators and then, commissioned. Accordingly, the first phase has concentrated on cultural production in Cyprus and the commissioning of eight projects by Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, including Özge Ertanın and Oya Silbery, Görkem Müniroglu and Emre Yazgin, Vicky Pericleous, Erhan Oze, Andreas Savva, Zehra Sonia and Gürgenc Kormazel, Socratis Socratous, Demetris Taliotis, Constantinos Taliotis and Orestis Lambrou. The exhibition of the projects runs from 23 September – 23 October 2011.

On Saturday 24 September in the morning there will be a guided tour of the exhibit, given by the curators and a panel discussion in the afternoon with Monica Griznic, Lamia Joreige, Niyazi Kizilyurek , Socrates Stratis and Jack Persekian moderated by Basak Senova and Pavlina Paraskevaidou, followed by a screening of Anton Vidokle’s New York Conversations.

An accompanying book will be published in October 2011 and includes contributions by Stavros Stavrides, Bulent Diken, Alex Galloway, Abdoumaliq Simone, Jalal Touffic,Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Dervis Zaim, Mushon Zer-Aviv, Pelin Tan, and Socrates Stratis, together with essays from the curators and sections devoted to the archive and the artists work.

the artists and their projects

Vicky Pericleous’ work presents an installation of image and sound (a monitor and speakers) that consists of recorded interviews from people on flights to or from Nicosia Airport and a video sequence captured by attaching a camera on a balloon flying above the terminal building. The images on the monitor are reminiscent of a surveillance recording, broken up and re-edited in a disorderly and impossible time-line blurring reality with fiction while the recorded interviews are interrupted never allowing for a narrative to be developed. The fragmented flow of images and storylines attempt to reconstruct the airport in space and time highlighting the impossibility of the task ahead. The artist worked with director Panikos Charalambous for the production and post-production.

The content of Erhan Oze’s work “Extraterritorial Electromagnetic Interventions” is beyond the framework of this exhibition. (description of the work will be published inthis website in November, 2011)

Andreas Savva’s work focuses on the notion of waiting and anticipation in reference to a solution to the Cyprus Problem. During his visit at the airport he was intrigued by the seats in the departure’s lounge at Nicosia airport. Their anthropomorphic design, now weathered by time and covered in dust, brings to mind passengers waiting to board their flight. He proposes to do replicas of these seats which he will place outside the venue in the buffer zone, an unexpected encounter for visitors, some of who will recognize them as belonging to the airport, while other will be wondering about their provenance. In either case they extend an invitation to sit down and talk.

Socratis Socratous proposes to document the backstage activities of UNFICYP at the Nicosia Airport, both the Civil Affairs as well as the military divisions. The artist foregoes the news reportage style and uses his camera to map human activity. Socratous ignores official narratives and concentrates instead on the mundane and everyday. His photographs look at Nicosia airport behind the scenes, shifting attention from the daily references to the peace talks and the nostalgic image of the modernist buildings and the memories it embodies, and looks at the stories that unfold behind the headlines.

The work of Demetris Taliotis, Constantinos Taliotis and Orestis Lambrou examines the modernist heritage in postcolonial society and question politics of destruction and preservation. In particular they examine the erasure of memory associated with modernist architecture that, increasingly in Cyprus, gives place to the urban sprawl punctuated by the number of car parks that sprout in its place. Could this also be the future of the Nicosia Airport? The artists propose to recreate the specifics of a car park (gravel covering the floor, a shabby shed, an old man issuing tickets etc) in the context of the exhibition, inside the venue. In a somewhat ironic twist the work seems to be suggesting this will be the cultural heritage of the future.

Özge Ertanın and Oya Silbery are young artists who use various media to investigate and question social and political situations in Cyprus with black humour. In the same line of thinking, they approach the Nicosia International Airport as one of the active evidences of the obligatory idleness in the island. In this respect, they work on a website which would operate as the actual website of the Nicosia International Airport as if it is used. Nevertheless, the ironic content of the website will reveal the actual state of the airport, once a user start to navigate through its pages.

Zehra Sonya is an artist working on diverse socio-political issues with sculpture and installations. Her starting point is the found objects in the abandoned airport building. She selects founded objects and collaborates with Gür Genç who is a poet and writer, to write semi-documentary stories about them. These stories blend reality with fiction with a documentary tone. She processes these stories and objects with photographs as collages as an installation. A booklet will accompany the installation including Gür Genç's stories and her collages.

Görkem Müniroğlu is a young artist, works with both sound and image. For this project, he collaborates with Emre Yazgin, who is a sound engineer, to produce a piece that would create an installation as an acoustic surrounding for the exhibition. Müniroglu aims to revive the dead energy of Nicosia airport by playing it as a musical instrument. Therefore, he produces soundtracks, which consist of series of composed and edited sound recordings, taken from the airports at Nicosia, Larnaca and Ercan.