Three new exhibitions coming to NiMAC

It’s a new season at the Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre (NiMAC) as it organises three exhibitions from May 7 to July 23. Project Room #7, Frenk Bey, Fortress and the Thing is the title of Hasan Aksaygın’s exhibition; Contemporary Photographic Practices #2, Sensing is Believing, Believing is Seeing is Adonis Archontides’s exhibition; and One Hundred Fifty-Eight Attempts for Revision is the title of Nicolas Lambouris’ show.

Aksaygın’s exhibition deals with the history of colonial Cyprus via a fictional narrative. Aksaygın most generally examines (post-)memories induced by the Cyprus dispute, its diaspora, and post-coloniality or derivative conflicts in the region and his upcoming show deals with the history of electricity in colonial Cyprus. The foundation of his project marks the time of an explosion at the Nicosia Old Powerhouse in 1947 due to neglect caused by problematic power relations between the colonial British Government of Cyprus, the Nicosia Municipality, and the private electric company that was providing electricity to the city at the time.

Focusing his research on the causes and effects of this incident, the artist uses the information extracted from various archival, historical and academic material to create a speculative visual and textual narrative that can be described as Neo-Gothic storytelling or a remake of the Gothic tale Frankenstein.

Next up, Sensing is Believing, Believing is Seeing is a series of photographic works which utilise remote sensing techniques, namely photogrammetry and LiDAR scanning (a 3D scanning process of objects). While not strictly photography, 3D scanning has the same principles and ambitions of ‘reality capture’ as traditional photography, but within a three-dimensional digital framework. A recurring theme in the images is gateways, imagined or suggested.

Through a method similar to collage, Archontides composes virtual worlds. Virtual worlds occupy a strange ontological status located in the liminal space between the actual and imaginary – they are visible and appear to be material, yet their materiality is merely an illusion, requiring a leap of faith on the viewer’s part to become fully realised. Through this process, the works negotiate both the process as a medium for photography, but also the Cypriot landscape as a place that remains in many ways virtual.

The third exhibition, International Association of Photography & Theory [IAPT] launches the PHCommission project, a bi-annual activity which invites artistic proposals that investigate contemporary perspectives in photographic practices and experiment with the idea of the book as an alternative platform of artistic intervention. In collaboration with NiMAC, the first edition of PHCommission, presents the work of the artist Lambouris under the title One Hundred Fifty-Eight Attempts for Revision, curated by Elena Stylianou and Yiannis Toumazis.

The exhibition One Hundred Fifty-Eight Attempts for Revision comprises four volumes: the three-volume project Propaedeutics on Memorial Structures (2018-2020) which investigates the social, political and cultural condition of memorials and monuments in Cyprus and We Never Had Winners (2021). Propaedeutics on Memorial Structures Vol. I (2019) studies, deconstructs and re-presents a number of memorials in the southern part of the island and attempts to challenge their significance. Propaedeutics on Memorial Structures Vol. II (2020) documents Giorgos Georgiou’s (1942–2008) project and proposal for a public monument dedicated to Archbishop Makarios III.

The project also examines the act of photographing and appropriating photographic documents as evidence of a particular historical narrative. The project critically reflects upon contested articulations of collective national and cultural narratives pertaining to these sites. We Never Had Winners (2021) acts as a starting point of the three-part project titled Propaedeutics on Memorial Structures Vol. I, II & III, investigating the social, political and cultural condition of memorial monuments in Cyprus.

Three Exhibitions

May 7-July 23. NiMAC, Nicosia. Opening night: 7pm. Tuesday-Friday: 10am-9pm. Tel: 22-797400. www.nimac.org.cy