Unconscious Architecture

Geographies of Cypriot state housing
Orestis Lambrou and Evi Tselika

Within European contemporary art the terrain of council/ community/ social housing has become a firm trend throughout the last twenty to thirty years. Mass Council housing in Cyprus is barely thirty years old. And it is presently an unchartered creative and artistic pathway to be explored. This local specific response towards communitarian spatial environments highlights a plethora of tensions. The understanding of displacement, the monumentality of both the built setting and the narratives of war demonstrate the local specificity and yet unifying characteristics of what social housing means in Europe.

The absence of civic dialogue in relation to the Cypriot state estates, better known locally as ‘refugee neighbourhoods’ become a good springboard in launching artistic experiments and reflection. The use of Modernist models of community housing that these estates demonstrate situate this creative enquiry into the wider understanding of European interpretations of mass/ social housing developments. The Cypriot state developed them hurriedly to fulfil the needs after 1974, thus even using ready made plans from the UK. This is presented through the architectural construction and through the creation of new communities; by not only making houses and blocks of flats but also by creating green spaces, shops, services, schools, churches, pathways and roads.

The current communities of these semi state and semi-private, built clusters present particular micro geographies and socio spatial narratives. The artists were invited to question, document, narrate and face these charged neighbourhoods. The project explores the notions of ‘how the built environment defines community’ and how ‘the community defines the built environment’. This exhibition and happenings question the public understanding of Cypriot state housing, how community shapes these environments, how planned urban developments become organic and how these can demonstrate the disputed notion of failure in relation to the Modernist legacy of European social housing.

All proceedings, art production, archival, architectural, site specific, theoretical, research will be documented with the aim of being presented in a publication in 2013.

Exhibition and happenings

This project includes an exhibition with works by artists exploring the theme in a gallery space, an artistic residency, theoretical reflections and other happenings that will take place within council estates in Nicosia.

The exhibition will present works by
Claudia Djabbari (Germany)- Residency
Yiannis Ioannou (Cyprus)
Achilleas Kentonis (Cyprus)
Phanos Kyriacou (Cyprus)
Orestis Lambrou (Cyprus)
Maria Toumazou (Cyprus)
Evi Tselika (Cyprus)

Exhibition will take place at the Visual Artists Association Nicosia- 11.10.12 to 19.10.12. Opening on Thursday, 11.10.12 at 19:30.

For the duration of the show a workshop will run for the Fine Art students of the University of Nicosia

Affiliated happenings

Square at the end of Assias street, Plati, Aglantzia, 2114

Exploring the site- Experimenting and displaying in state estates- Platy, Aglantzia- morning to afternoon 13/10
Site specific experimental workshop/ display/ documentation of experiment for publication

Invited artists participate in an experimental day of action in the space
of the state housings.

Participants include the artists mentioned above and amongst others
Christos Avraam, Chrystalleni Loizidou, Christos Hadjichristou

Talk by structural engineer Mr Kypros Pafitis member of the team
responsible for the construction of the Plati estate housing- 17:00

-Cafe Philosophique-
13/10 18:00- 20:00
Lead by Dr Andreas Vrahimis (University of Cyprus, University of Technology of Cyprus)
Discussion on state housing in Cyprus- social housing, European modernism

For more information please visit
http://unconsciousarchitecture.blogspot.com/

Or contact
Orestis Lambrou- [email protected]
Evi Tselika- [email protected]

This project is being carried out with the kind support of the
Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture
The German Embassy
Visual Artists Association