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Music, art and parallel events at Xarkis Festival 2021

bike ride with marina kyriakou

It’s almost time for the interactive three-day festival, Xarkis 2021 with parallel events and music performances on the agenda. The art installations found all over the festival grounds at Lympia village include work by architect Thanos Vozikis and designer Anastasia Melandinou who will exhibit a modern and digitised investigation of traditional methods and building materials of communities in rural areas of Cyprus to highlight their ecological impact. Iranian artist Sepideh Behrouzian will bring an interactive game, through which a series of thoughts and positions are shared, on the destruction of the environment and the deterioration of social ties. Artist Alexandra Pampouka is creating an installation that concerns the place and its people, emphasising the collection/reuse of garbage and the use of biodegradable materials.

A group of architecture students at the University of Nicosia are participating in a workshop installation with tutors Adonis Cleanthous and Yiorgos Hatzichristou. Artist Zofia Komasa from Warsaw is preparing a site-specific performance and participatory adventure that will seek natural scenes for the local community. Cypriot artist Yeti Yeti is designing a large-scale mural, which will capture ideas and images that have emerged from discussions with festival participants and residents of Lympia.

Several parallel actions will also take place. The Bicycle Mayor of Nicosia, Marina Kyriakou, will organise a bike ride in the village, exploring nature and the characteristics of the community, while there will be a walk in the agro-eco neighbourhood with George Tzioni. Kyriakos Kyriakou is coordinating a thematic quiz about Lympia and beyond, with fun facts about the surrounding environment and Chris Vrettos proposes an interactive lecture with the public on the various ways in which environmental and social systems are connected in space and time, while Koinon Olympion team is creating furniture with reused materials which will be placed in parts of the public space of the community.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a festival without music and on October 15 and 16 the public will have an opportunity to enjoy concerts with acts including Androula Kafa, together with a choral ensemble of women, who will present a performance that deals with the psychology and philosophy of the climate crisis in an effort to understand the present.

Audiovisual artist Panagiotis Mina draws inspiration from personal experiences, life in the countryside and the development of a close relationship with more rural environments, and is presenting work made using materials from his residence in the Xarkis Multi-Residency Programme. Singer Agona Shporta from Kosovo will share her experiences regarding the participation and activation of communities through music, her curiosity about the sound landscape, the musical heritage and the stories of Lympia and Cyprus in general.

Maly-Mály – Vassilis Filippou and Odysseas Toumazou – will stage a concert with original compositions as well as adaptations of traditional songs on the relationship between man and nature. The musician Stella N Christou will present her audio work which results from the collection of sounds, words and materials while Cypriot rapper JuΛio will perform his own compositions, with punchy lyrics delivered exclusively in the Cypriot dialect.

All the musicians to be hosted at Xarkis Festival are complemented by the award-winning band Monsieur Doumani.

The festival concludes with Masa Potluck, a celebration and a reunion, again an initiative of the Xarkis team, which will be co-organised with members of the local community. This action includes a farewell event and a collective dinner, to which residents of the village as well as participants of the festival, will contribute food or drink, based on materials produced by the area to share at one large table.

 

Xarkis Festival 2021 – Back to the Roots

Annual festival with participatory workshops, art installations, parallel events, live music and a Residency programme. October 15-17. Lympia Village, Nicosia. Tickets: €25 for 3 days, €12 for 1 day. festival.xarkis.org. Tel: 97-676011. [email protected]

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