[spectre] UNCOVERED - Nicosia International Airport - September 2011 Launch

[Basak Senova]

NICOSIA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
Cyprus
2010-2013
 
www.uncovered-cyprus.com
info at uncovered-cyprus.com
 
23 September ­ 23 October 2011
 
Opening: 23rd September
Venue: Ledra Street/Lockmaci Buffer zone
Hours: 10am-8pm, daily (except Mondays)
Time: 7:00pm
 

Guided Tour of the exhibit: 24 September

Venue: Ledra Street-Lokmaci, Buffer Zone

Given in English by the curators and the artists

Time: 10.30-11.30am
 
Panel Discussion: 24th September
Venue: Home for Cooperation Buffer zone
Time: 2.30-7.30pm
 
Curators : Pavlina Paraskevaidou and Basak Senova
Project Co-Ordinators: Ozgul Ezgin and Argyro Toumazou
Based on an idea by artist Vicky Pericleous.
 
 
THE PROJECT
 
UNCOVERED is a three-year research based art project, divided into two
phases, and its area of investigation are the issues stemming from the
prolonged condition of the closed Nicosia International Airport.
 
The title of the project is a word-play UN+COVERED reflecting on the role
and presence of the UN at the airport since the latter was declared a United
Nations Protected Area following the hostilities on the island in the summer
of 1974, resulting in the de-facto division of the island and the creation
of a buffer zone. The United Nations continues to facilitate Peace
negotiations between the two sides. The project aims to explore notions of
memory, commons and control mechanisms, as these arise out of the status of
a closed-off airport in a space of conflict.
 
Lying abandoned inside the buffer zone, off limits to the local communities,
the Nicosia Airport represents a spatial order generated by 37 years of UN
control in the context of a protracted conflict between the Greek Cypriot
and Turkish Cypriot communities. The once-bustling Nicosia airport served as
the central port of entry and departure in a newly independent country in
the wake of post-colonialism. The novelty of its architecture, with its
much-hailed new terminal, has acquired a rich patina of forgetting, a
monument to a failed modernism while at the same time remains in a state of
suspended animation.
 
The project explores how this space, frozen in time and space, indicates and
exposes the operational and organizational logics of control that have
evolved on the island over the past decades and asks questions that move
beyond the ubiquitous mnemonic to pain in order to ultimately understand and
reclaim the island¹s ³commons.²
 
 
 
 
FIRST PHASE
 
The first phase has concentrated on cultural production in Cyprus and the
commissioning of eight projects by Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots,
including Özge Ertanžn 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 Vidokle¹s 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 ARTISTS¹ PROJECTS
 
Özge Ertanžn and Oya Silbery use various media to investigate and question
social and political situations in Cyprus with black humour. As a response
to the protracted idleness on the island, they work on a website for the
Nicosia International Airport with information and data that function as
though the airport was active. Nevertheless, the ironic content of the
website reveals the actual state of the airport, once a user starts
navigating through its pages.
 
Görkem Müniroglu works with both sound and image and for this project, he
collaborates with Emre Yazgin, a sound engineer, to create a sound
installation. Müniroglu aims to revive the dead energy of Nicosia airport by
playing it as a musical instrument.  For this installation he has produced
soundtracks, which consist of series of composed and edited sound
recordings, taken from the airports at Nicosia, Larnaca and Ercan.
 
Erhan Oze investigates how the war of sovereignty over Cyprus has been
extended to the electromagnetic field and the island¹s air space.  The
artist highlights that tactic of intercepting radio signals as both Ercan
Air Control Centre and Nicosia Air Control Centre try to exercise control
over the FIR space and ascertain sovereignty.  The artist presents
interviews with air traffic controllers from both sides where each presents
their side of the problem, while Erhan also maps the airmisses over Cyprus¹
air space.
 
Vicky Pericleous presents a multi-media installation that includes video
images from the airport and interviews conducted by the artist.  The work is
a collage, a fragmented aural and visual narrative.  The storyline attempts
to reconstruct the airport in space and time, blurring reality with fiction,
as though a journey back in memory. Yet this is frustrated by the constant
change of frames in the montage.  The viewer is being denied access to the
airport.
 
Andreas Savva reflects on the notions of alienation and anticipation in
relation to the peace talks in Cyprus.  One of the most enduring images from
Nicosia International Airport is the rows of dusted seats in the departures
lounge that were originally designed by Pambos Savvides.  Savva presents
replicas of these seats.  For his installation he places them at an
inconspicuous place, inside the buffer zone, the passageway between south
and north checkpoints. Some visitors might recognize them, while for others
they will be a novelty or a curiosity.  In either case, they extend an
invitation to sit down and talk.
 
Through her installations Zehra Sonya examines diverse socio-political
issues.  For this project she collects found objects and collaborates with
Gürgenc Korkmazel, a poet and writer, who writes semi-documentary stories
about them.   These stories blend reality with fiction set in a documentary
tone. Sonya processes these stories and objects with photographs as collages
as an installation. A booklet accompanies the installation including Gürgenç
Kormazel's stories and her collages.
 
Socratis Socratous foregoes the news reportage style and uses his camera to
map human activity. The artist 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 silent stories that unfold behind the headlines.
 
Demetris Taliotis, Constantinos Taliotis and Orestis Lambrou collaborate to
examine 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.  The artists recreate the space of a make-shift car
park, but transpose it in the context of an exhibition.
 
The data collecting team is Özge Ertanin, Eleni Flouri, Giorgos
Chrysostomou, Argyris Fellas, Andreas Aristodemou, Görkem Müniroglu, Oya
Silbery, Zehra Sonya, Costas Americanos, Argyris Adamou, Maria Charalambous,
Christoforos Zacharopoulos, and Maria Tsangaride.
 
The visual identity of the project is developed by Gökçe Sekeroglu, Xenios
Symeonides, and Basak Senova.
The posters and the book are designed by Gökçe Sekeroglu and Xenios
Symeonides.
The artist booklets and website are designed by NOMAD.
The venue building is offered by the Kykkos Monastery.
The printing of the book and all accompanying publications is sponsored by
the Phileleftheros Group.
The panel and book is in part supported by the Open Society Foundation.
The panel is hosted by the Home for Cooperation.
Catering is sponsored by Cafe Biyer and Azbom Bakery.
Computers are sponsored by Trace Computer Ltd.
 
 
The exhibition is presented under the auspices of the United Nations Good
Offices in Cyprus and the support of UNDP, Cyprus.
 
Project Partners: 
European Mediterranean Art Association (EMAA)
Pharos Arts Foundation
Anadolu Kultur