4th Xarkis Festival

Xarkis Festival will be realised again this year in the picturesque village of Lofou in the district of Limassol, where it will be, for the fourth consecutive year, one of the long awaited summer happenings. Xarkis Festival 2016 is growing and is enriched with even more educational workshops, performances, talks, interactive installations, an artists’ residency, music concerts and ziafetti (Cypriot fiesta). Activities that have the aim of promoting a wide “matchmaking” mechanism, whereby people of different age, educational and professional groups meet, collaborate and converse, to give birth to new ideas, conditions and scenarios. The week of actions will take place between July 4-10 2016.

04-08 July 2016
Specialist workshops

08-10 July 2016
Xarkis Festival

The creative festivity will begin on the 4th of July with specialist workshops in the village centre, directed mostly towards people with relative or previous experience in the subject matters presented and will continue up until the launch of the 3d Xarkis Festival on the 8th of July.

In the context of the Festival, different aspects of folk and vernacular culture will blend harmoniously with aspects of contemporary culture. This “fermentation” can be used as a model for rejuvenation and creative community development, where through different workshops, parallel actions and the application of participatory design, participants will get a chance to actively participate in the educational program, to develop skills in topics of interest, to create and to contribute towards the final result of each action. The different activities that make up Xarkis Festival 2016 will be unfolded in a festive atmosphere, with the climax of a vibrant music program. Musicians from Cyprus, Greece, Africa, the Caribbean and Great Britain will meet in Lofou to amplify the Festival evenings with their unique sounds.

Among others, Xarkis Festival has set the following goals for this year:

• The cultivation of a culture of collective action and qualitative collaboration, in order for individuals, knowledge, skills and available resources to be highlighted and used effectively for the common good.

• The creation of a learning space that gives emphasis to practical application which aims towards the acquisition of skills and /or the shaping of critical thinking, in combination with folk philosophy and scientific knowledge.

• To serve as an opportunity but also a model for rejuvenation and creative community development. In the context of the festival, topics of local, contemporary creative practices are explored and re-defined, in the context of social sustainability.

• To form a context for of application and experimentation in relation to the methodological axes of participatory design, [methodology that refers to the active participation of citizens in problem solving] and socially engaged art and design, [methodology which is encouraged through the creative process involving different social groups].

So don’t be late, go xarkis!

For more info and the schedule visit: www.xarkisfestival.org