How did this grant contribute to the realization of your project in regard to artistic exchange, local cultural development and/or the promotion of cultural diversity?
Having had the great experience of taking part at Buffer Fringe Performing Arts Festival IV in Nicosia, Cyprus, with the valuable support of Roberto Cimetta Fund I was able to accomplish the long durational performance “Refugio” with my partner Alexandros Michail for two days in six hours in total. Performing in Nicosia at Selimyie Square (09.11.2017) in the North part of Cyprus and at Faneromeni Square (10.11.2017) in the South part as well, it was a challenge to connect by our project the divided people and the places, using the public spaces on both sides, while Nicosia remains the last capital in Europe that is separated by a demilitarized zone, known as the Green Line. A great number of audience and art organizations were able to see, empathize and interpret our call for fusion between deferent concepts of oppositions. Performing this artwork, which can potentially have such a direct impact on the local community was both exciting and artistically meaningful to cultural diversity.
How does exchange, networking and international contacts contribute to the development of your artistic and cultural project?
Through the freedom of artistic expression and the help of the organizers of the Home For Co-operation for the Buffer Fringe Festival, we aimed to promote an equal facility for artistic and cultural development having used the Squares of both sides of Nicosia, as a site of a place of constant negotiation between our performative practices. We defined and constructed borders, limits, fortresses that were kept changing, influencing our own identities too. What is familiar and what is hostile in this laborious performance refuge was to be found in chasing and escaping. Throughout this continual negotiation between us, as performers, a metaphor of ‘exchanging’ ideas was also placed as an important value for sharing and co-operating. This residency offered an appropriate space for experimentation, communication and empathy shared with Turkish-Cypriots and Greek-Cypriots. Some of the audience crossed for the first time the ‘other’ side to turn out on the performance. Networking and international contacts are vital for the development of our art project while we continue to create in our region and abroad our performances related to interventional social and political concepts.
Can you elaborate on the learning and knowledge you have gained and shared throughout this experience?
We had the opportunity during our travel to Cyprus of transnational meetings and discussions between individuals (local people and other artists), organizations (Home for Cooperation and Nordic Fringe Network) and institutions (Goethe Inst.) about the essential role in the development of democracy and respect the self and communal determination of people or cultures and fights against the isolation of individuals and populations. We all agreed that culture and arts are crucial in the emergence and resolution of conflicts while we started to explore future plans of possible co-operation with local, regional, national and international levels of creative interactions. Moreover, while we were working on our long durational performance, we were able to understand and explore deeper our association with the site-specific context as well as with a wider social context. This experience had inspired our collaboration for future works related to this topic and possible co-operation with international contacts that we made.
Please indicate a link to your current work (website/facebook page)
http://yiannispappas.com/ http://yiannispappas.com/
