Making Choices

Day 4:

Curator’s Cut: (Gülgün)

Today we processed ideas. Having divided the  spent all morning in a critique session, with each artist trying out initial concepts for their projections. In a way, we were taking time to digest information from the last few days, slowing down to take stock and understand what each artist wants to communicate before diving into the technical aspects of production. 

We followed Liz Lerman’s critical response process as a framework for this critique session. I brought this methodology from the US into the group as a tool to support and  encourage active listening and respective responses. Artists and producers responded positively to the process: “ I found it very beneficial and effective” (Dicle).

Intergenerational and cross cultural support is an important part pf the residency and the Lerman process offers us an opportunity to develop a supportive atmosphere for respectful, honest and critical dialogue.

Below is a summary of the ideas:

Adi:

Concept:An emotional mapping project of the ruins and remnants of the city. He will use architectural images these will bring together elements of everything - architectural /all the elements of the city.

Vasilios:

Concept: An emotional mapping project of the ruins and remnants of the city. He will use architectural images these will bring together elements of everything - architectural /all the elements of the city.

Olgu:

Concept: wants to stimulate joy, celebrate the city and its people through old stories, myths  and fairytales of Famagusta. Olgu is from Famagusta has heard mths of the city he growing up. 

Dicle & Aliki:

Concept: they want to focus on the future, not the past. They are interested in community interrelation,  focused on the personal and relational. The artists have a common interest in using fabric, hanging clothes on lines, The idea of supportive communities, sending messages to friends. They would like to project personal supportive messages in three languages onto fabric in the public square.

Having shared these concepts, the afternoon was focused on identifying the location, location, location for the artwork! Below are the buildings we explored in the old city:

Meeting the Artists

DAY 3: 

Curator's Cut (Ellada): An introduction to the artists participating in the residency, a short clip, a quote and a Curator's viewpoint. A brief unpacking of what i consider to be part of who they are as artists.  

Curator's Cut (Gülgün): After the presentations we asked the artists if they were interested in a particular collaboration. Aliki and Dicle raised their hands, so they were paired. There was agreement for Adi, Olgu and Vasilios to share the same projector/location for their work.

Aliki Kirmitsi (set designer): "It's interesting who you meet when you research these things"
- An openness to the possibilities of finding and trusting the unknown, all from a place of aesthetic comfort. 

Olgu Tosun (graphic designer, Fine Arts student): "Until you come there and watch the show, you didn't realize that the pieces connected to each other" 

- An impulsive relationship with what is happening in the here-and-now, tuning into the aesthetic and co-creative environment in a corporeal way.

Adi Atassi (fine artist): "By accident, i shot them passing each other"

- The ability to sync with what is happening in the space around you, collecting the creative possibility of the moment.

Dicle Özlüses  (fine artist): "I wanted to extend the idea of abstraction"
- Opening and stretching boundaries, a personal and artistic process of consecutive and concurrent challenging. 

Vasilis Vasiliou (muralist): "everything changed, the way i'd seen art in general, visual art, what is an image, and how you can communicate something"
- Shifting and ever-changing phases of how you see what you seen in the world.

Getting Deeper into Famagusta

Day 2: "I have to knock on the door of my subconscious and ask it"

Curator's Cut (Ellada):

The phrase is creatively borrowed (!) from resident artist Adi Atassi, describing his process of creation and demystification of the residency itself. In it, as a dramaturge-curator, i found much that was the intention of the residency as a whole.

A certain permission-granting was needed for us, a creative team from mostly people outside of Famagusta, to enter. To avoid the parachuting effect of artists falling in contested spaces, locations more attractive on a powerpoint presentation in an international conference, than they c/would ever be to the artists, the process of the community.

Part of the process of permission-granting took on Day 2 of the residency. The day was mostly devoted to listening from people who had done work on the city and area, as well as practitioners of community-based art. Socratis Stratis, academic and architect, member of the Imaginary Famagusta - Hands-on Famagusta collective, talked about the contested space which is the city, and the inclusive processes that created a new (individual and collective) imaginary. Evi Tselika spoke of her work in socially engaged art, in Nicosia and internationally, engaging with various population groups, and the Re-Aphrodite project. The morning session closed with Yiannis Toumazis, and his conceptual Framework for the New Famagusta Museum, an intersection of the past and future of said space, an opening to a new possibility of experiencing a wounded urban center.

The afternoon was filled with the vibrant chant of Nurtane Karagil, artist, and Aycan Garip, artist and academic, who walked us through their (often controversial) works and lives in Famagusta, the philosophy behind the hosting space of Pikadilli, a space which nurtures collective creation, individual expression, innovation in culture and merry-making, in the building which was once the kingdom of a Famagusta seamstress.

Phase two of Adi's quote: asking the subconscious. The asking is an active process of reaching for answers. The answers of other are now secondary: once we have entered, we need to make our own. Dramaturgy of/in a space, through disciplines, ages, languages, tools and experiences.  A debrief and conversation around dramaturgy took place under a tree behind the arches of the entrance to the Venetian Palace, to the music from a bride's henna ceremony. Feelings and thoughts on the process arose, as this was the first chance the artists had to speak freely, not as a response to someone. All the breathing they were holding inside came out in a common exhale, an agony about how we would do this.

The Dramaturgy was based on two main axes: what is stable and what is fluid. The technology, the need for a surface, the city and the tools of the artists are stable. What is fluid is everything else: inspiration, aesthetic, community, collaboration, ad infinitum. Even the clause of two teams is rendered porous. The choices, editing, mix-and-match, combinations, exclusions, can happen starting tomorrow. Tonight is the last night of infinite possibilities.

Coming Together

Day 1

Curator’s Cut (Gülgün): 

Our first day exploring the White Nights residency. The main task for the day involved orienting ourselves to each other and the city of Famagusta. Beginning with the theme of the residency, I kicked off the day with a presentation on the idea of what a White Nights festival actually is or can be. I talked about Northern Spark in Minneapolis, which is modeled on a white nights concept and is a free, annual multidisciplinary, multi-venue dusk to dawn participatory arts festival. My work with Northern Spark festival involves commissioning an annual signature artwork and the artists that present in The Commons, a park in the center of the city of Minneapolis.

My presentation also addressed the constraints that the Famagusta residency has placed on the artists: they will have to create work in the form of large scale public projections. I shared examples of participatory projections in the Northern Spark festival as well as projection work by prominent artists such as Shimon Attie and Tony Ousler. I also made some effort to match this work with the subject matter interests of the resident artists. 

Next I led a short workshop on sited research strategies. This methodology calls for artists to choose a single sense or sensibility through which to explore the city. Each artist had to choose one research action from the following list:  sight, sound, movement, signs and signage (formal and informal) and narrative. I asked them  to engage and explore the local area using only one approach. Here are a few examples of what was collected.

City exploration movement experiment by Aliki Kiritsi

(research on city signs and graffiti by Add Atassi)

"Signs speak a language but not the one you think you know"

Italio Calvino, Invisible Cities

The rest of the day was devoted to orienting ourselves to the city. Serdar Atay came to talk about the work of the Famagusta Walled City Association and its projects and archive. The artists can choose to use the archive as a resource and as well as their space during the residency.

Aydin Mehmet Ali, a Turkish Cypriot writer, activist and translator met us on the Palm Hotel beach which is adjacent to the abandoned haunted and militarized neighborhood of Varosha /Marash [ a little about the area] She read from her work on the beach,  then led us on a meandering walk through the old city ruins, docks, monuments and spaces. We discussed the city’s spaces, its history, organization and character. The elegance of the ancient Famagusta skyline was impressive, “there are no buildings higher than the palm trees, wow! ’ exclaimed a Greek Cypriot artist. 

We watched the sun set from the walls of the Othello Tower.

The day ended with an unworkshop presentation by cultural theorist Crystalleni Loizidou who hosted an un-workshop on how to begin to investigate place? Some of her live notes from this discussion below:

Speaking of Famagusta / dimensions of being in Famagusta

- A sense of never 'knowing enough’

- Notions of Cypriot resilience (and the underbelly of such narratives)

- Emphasis on stories of connectivity, wealth, and trade (syllabary, diving into jewels, transport of animals, relation to Silk Road / offshoot)

- Pikadilli and its surrounding area as representative of..