Iconoclastic Controversies

On Saturday 23 January NeMe invites you to the exhibition Iconoclastic Controversies: A visual sociology of statues and commemoration sites in the southern regions of Cyprus by Nico Carpentier and to the accompanying seminar, Monuments and Memorials as rhetoric / Objectivity as male.

The exhibition which will take place at the NeMe Arts Centre contains 20 photographs, accompanying text panels and eight listening posts of recorded interviews that investigate the monuments, landmarks and statues that are part of the everyday life of Greek Cypriots. “The statues are vehicles of communication. They are vehicles of ideology and of information”, explains Nico Carpentier, “and they allow us to reflect about past, present and future.”

The photographs are used to analyse how statues and commemoration sites in the Greek Cypriot community narrate and frame the Cyprus conflict, and how they in many cases contain references to the “Self” and the “Other”. They present a heroic “Self” to the “Own” community, or show the suffering of the “Self”. But the exhibition also investigates how some (exceptional) sculptures undermine this traditional presentation of the “Self” and offer a different narrative of the conflict, and of the identities of the people involved.

The photographs were taken during Carpentier’s stay on the island, from September of 2013 to September 2014. This ground-breaking project moves away from traditional academic texts to examine and analyse complicated social phenomena, such as those produced by the political situation in Cyprus. The idea behind this exhibition is that photographs can work just as effectively to communicate an academic analysis. Quite possibly they work even more intuitively.

Opening: 23/1/2016, 8.30pm

Opening Times
Tuesday-Friday: 17:30-20:30
Saturday: 10:00-13:00

On 23 January 2016, at 18:30, before the opening of the exhibition, NeMe has organised a seminar to stimulate further reflection. This seminar, Monuments and Memorials as rhetoric / Objectivity as male will be in English. It is open to the public and will take place at the Photography Lab Room at Heroes’ square (at the corner of Pavlou Mela and Vasilou Makedonos, Limassol). Speakers are Vayia Karaiskou, Aysu Arsoy and Chrystalleni Loizidou. The moderator is Vicky Triga.