Signs of Culture (2) at the City Limits
5 May 2017
With a month to go to the start of AUC's inaugural Culture Lab, and after a relaxing meivakantie break nearby, I decided to explore the local environment for signs of the cultural behemoth that is Paphos 2017. I'm staying about 20km north of the city, in a mountain resort known for its orange groves and sulphur springs.
According to both the Cyprus Mail and the festival website (http://www.pafos2017.eu/en/), there were two events in villages the hinterlands nearby. One of these, a daily pottery demonstration in Androlikou isn't due to start until 8 May, but I thought I could drive past anyway and look at the location. The other is an ongoing exhibition/installation entitled Eco Art.
As I approached Androlikou up some windy narrow roads, I remembered I'd gone through here before. As well as the herds of goats, olive plantations and industrial quarries that are par for the course around here, I had got the sense that this place had not fared too well in the lottery of local villages. In fact, most of the buildings are ruins, as though it was unable to sustain a community faced with various social or cultural developments A websearch unearthed a photo essay that hints at one possible reason for its desertion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPbLOk6R3e0), but as the comment (singular, at time viewing) indicates, this may be contested.
It was as I remembered. I found it difficult to work out where, if anywhere, the pottery event might take place, and there was no signage to help. Perhaps in the one house that was painted in colours? In fact, other than the caprine population, the only indications of life I encountered were barks breaking the silence and two or three locals eyeing me suspiciously, for all the world like some lone salvage punks preoccupied with shackling rusty machinery to 4x4s in the garages I drove past. I wonder if the possibility of repopulating the village is ever considered, or can be considered. Nearby tourism capital is busily reterritoritalising the reaches of the Akamas peninsula, but has Androlikou been left to the elements? Indeed, is the decision to hold an event there an acknowledgement of the social and cultural vacuum left behind - perhaps aiming for sustainable rural crafts as festival legacy, or rather simply a reflection that some random Europotters might have found a cheap abandoned property (somewhere around) to use as a studio?
I then headed, not so much over the mountains but more as around them as I could manage to avoid the more treacherous roads, in search of Kato Arodes, home of Eco Art. The first visual indication that I was on track was a prominent orange flag displaying the City of Culture logo, with an arrow pointing down (yes, of course) a narrower single lane track. I followed the direction regardless, and, turning a bend, was soon rewarded with a view of the first installation, The artwork was a sign. Literally. Semiotics would be helpful in uncovering the impact of using a large billboard (of the kind common in the region, usually advertising new residential developments) had been devoted instead to a depiction of a rock in nature, as if the landscape was superimposing itself on itself and disrupting expectations. The rock has two red buttons, neither of which functions as they are within the photograph, but which suggest possible effects in line with the sculpture's title, Enter the Human Jungle. If it was possible to press them, would the rock explode? Become usable concrete like the quarry contents nearby? Perhaps build a new resort?
The second installation, down the hill a little, was indicated by a further orange flag (by now they were taking on Buddhist qualities for me) and its own 'sign' in the form of the plate indicating its title, Hiding Endemic Targets. What these paratexts described, was a row of shooting targets, familiar from the military practice ranges of cinema. I immediately thought of Behind Enemy Lines, which I'd watched a few days before. More than this, the juxtaposition of these visual icons, usually not associated with aesthetics, with the paraphernalia of the exhibit, offered up questions about the circumstances in which such a deadly purpose can ever be transformed into an object of cultural contemplation. But this is eco art, and I then thought about the landscape into which these ambivalent objects had been inserted. Certainly the lay of the land suggested both a shooting range and an actual battlefield, as the viewer looked down on the targets from a vantage point. Cyprus is a rocky Mediterranean island, but perhaps no island is fully an island. The nearest landfall to the east is Syria, and as the army bases, occasional overflying planes and naval ports around the island testify, it as much connected to the conflict there as its tourist focus aims to differentiate itself from it.
My attempt to follow the Eco Art trail petered out here, as the only remaining Buddhist flag I found seemed to designate nothing more exceptional than a village house, perhaps the headquarters of the project, but with no-one around.
Attempts to use the online map to navigate to the other sites were also frustrated by a combination of a lack of signage and trauma induced by roads with steep drops or built for the width of a mule. But my first encounter with the 2017 City of Culture, by means of its periphery, already raised interesting questions that Culture Lab will explore with more focus once it sets camp in Paphos. The local papers carry commentary about the roadworks not being completed in time for the festival (and that's true even in the city centre where whole neighbourhoods are still closed off by breeze blocks), but also listings of some world class concerts (from Ute Lemper to the Berlin Philharmonic), exhibitions and events. And a new outdoor plaza has emerged from the rubble in the centre of town. Tonight sees the inauguration of a new exhibition, Risky Travels, which combines Greek and Turkish Cypriot artists in bringing to light work rescued from the events of decades ago. So, just a couple of signs of culture from a city getting into gear for the year..
5 May 2017
According to both the Cyprus Mail and the festival website (http://www.pafos2017.eu/en/), there were two events in villages the hinterlands nearby. One of these, a daily pottery demonstration in Androlikou isn't due to start until 8 May, but I thought I could drive past anyway and look at the location. The other is an ongoing exhibition/installation entitled Eco Art.
As I approached Androlikou up some windy narrow roads, I remembered I'd gone through here before. As well as the herds of goats, olive plantations and industrial quarries that are par for the course around here, I had got the sense that this place had not fared too well in the lottery of local villages. In fact, most of the buildings are ruins, as though it was unable to sustain a community faced with various social or cultural developments A websearch unearthed a photo essay that hints at one possible reason for its desertion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPbLOk6R3e0), but as the comment (singular, at time viewing) indicates, this may be contested.
It was as I remembered. I found it difficult to work out where, if anywhere, the pottery event might take place, and there was no signage to help. Perhaps in the one house that was painted in colours? In fact, other than the caprine population, the only indications of life I encountered were barks breaking the silence and two or three locals eyeing me suspiciously, for all the world like some lone salvage punks preoccupied with shackling rusty machinery to 4x4s in the garages I drove past. I wonder if the possibility of repopulating the village is ever considered, or can be considered. Nearby tourism capital is busily reterritoritalising the reaches of the Akamas peninsula, but has Androlikou been left to the elements? Indeed, is the decision to hold an event there an acknowledgement of the social and cultural vacuum left behind - perhaps aiming for sustainable rural crafts as festival legacy, or rather simply a reflection that some random Europotters might have found a cheap abandoned property (somewhere around) to use as a studio?
I then headed, not so much over the mountains but more as around them as I could manage to avoid the more treacherous roads, in search of Kato Arodes, home of Eco Art. The first visual indication that I was on track was a prominent orange flag displaying the City of Culture logo, with an arrow pointing down (yes, of course) a narrower single lane track. I followed the direction regardless, and, turning a bend, was soon rewarded with a view of the first installation, The artwork was a sign. Literally. Semiotics would be helpful in uncovering the impact of using a large billboard (of the kind common in the region, usually advertising new residential developments) had been devoted instead to a depiction of a rock in nature, as if the landscape was superimposing itself on itself and disrupting expectations. The rock has two red buttons, neither of which functions as they are within the photograph, but which suggest possible effects in line with the sculpture's title, Enter the Human Jungle. If it was possible to press them, would the rock explode? Become usable concrete like the quarry contents nearby? Perhaps build a new resort?
The second installation, down the hill a little, was indicated by a further orange flag (by now they were taking on Buddhist qualities for me) and its own 'sign' in the form of the plate indicating its title, Hiding Endemic Targets. What these paratexts described, was a row of shooting targets, familiar from the military practice ranges of cinema. I immediately thought of Behind Enemy Lines, which I'd watched a few days before. More than this, the juxtaposition of these visual icons, usually not associated with aesthetics, with the paraphernalia of the exhibit, offered up questions about the circumstances in which such a deadly purpose can ever be transformed into an object of cultural contemplation. But this is eco art, and I then thought about the landscape into which these ambivalent objects had been inserted. Certainly the lay of the land suggested both a shooting range and an actual battlefield, as the viewer looked down on the targets from a vantage point. Cyprus is a rocky Mediterranean island, but perhaps no island is fully an island. The nearest landfall to the east is Syria, and as the army bases, occasional overflying planes and naval ports around the island testify, it as much connected to the conflict there as its tourist focus aims to differentiate itself from it.
My attempt to follow the Eco Art trail petered out here, as the only remaining Buddhist flag I found seemed to designate nothing more exceptional than a village house, perhaps the headquarters of the project, but with no-one around.
Attempts to use the online map to navigate to the other sites were also frustrated by a combination of a lack of signage and trauma induced by roads with steep drops or built for the width of a mule. But my first encounter with the 2017 City of Culture, by means of its periphery, already raised interesting questions that Culture Lab will explore with more focus once it sets camp in Paphos. The local papers carry commentary about the roadworks not being completed in time for the festival (and that's true even in the city centre where whole neighbourhoods are still closed off by breeze blocks), but also listings of some world class concerts (from Ute Lemper to the Berlin Philharmonic), exhibitions and events. And a new outdoor plaza has emerged from the rubble in the centre of town. Tonight sees the inauguration of a new exhibition, Risky Travels, which combines Greek and Turkish Cypriot artists in bringing to light work rescued from the events of decades ago. So, just a couple of signs of culture from a city getting into gear for the year..
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