Bicommunal festivals starts diversity at the top with range of curators

There’s just a few weeks to go until the Buffer Fringe Festival’s ninth edition will take artists and visitors all around Nicosia to experience installations, performances and interactive projects. Besides the three locations across the divide that will host projects, what also sets the festival apart this year is its team of five curators. Two individuals and one group of three will each curate one day of the festival.

“For the 2022 Buffer Fringe,” says Ellada Evangelou of the creative organising team, “we have decided that if we are to be truly inclusive, that needs to start at the top, at the place where decisions are made. So, we made the space for other voices to ‘speak’ through the festival, by inviting five curators.”

As such, Lebanese Raffi Feghali will curate the first day of the festival, October 7, Cypriot-Australian Kat Kats, Australian Bryce Ives and Cypriot Maria Varnakidou will curate Day 2, and Cypriot Derya Ulubatli will curate Day 3. Each curator will explore the theme Pockets (beyond) from their own perspective, inspired by the festival’s chosen locations as well as the artists taking part.

buffer2Across the three days of the festival, Buffer Fringe will take visitors to a new space each day, in the north, the south and the Buffer Zone. “The first day of the festival takes us to Rüstem Bookstore,” says Nihal Soganci who is also on the creative organising team, “an important cultural centre in north Nicosia that has endured many cultural shifts since its founding in 1937. The space is curated by Raffi Feghali, whose aim is to explore the relationship between narrative, identity and space.

“The second day of the festival finds us at NiMAC’s Theatro Polis,” she adds, “a complete 180 from the contextuality of Rüstem. Rather than busy and colourful, the space is a black box: a dark, quiet, more ‘traditional’ space for performance. The curatorial team invites participants, artists, and audiences alike, to ‘think inside the [black] box’ and challenge the confines of the space.”

The final day of the festival takes visitors to the UN buffer zone. There, Day 3 curator Ulubatli aims to transform it into a pocket, as per the theme, a space for all to meet and for art to exist beyond the notion of identities and ‘otherness’.

Confronting yet simultaneously bypassing Nicosia’s checkpoints and division has always been at Buffer Fringe’s core as every year its events take place on both sides of Nicosia.

“The Buffer Fringe is the only cultural festival to be taking place across the divide for the past nine years,” says Evangelou. “What I find most joy and meaning in is seeing people walk across the dividing line to present or experience art. As if this is a natural occurrence, as if it happens every day, as if they have been encouraged to do so, as if it does not require incredible amounts of courage to do so. This applies to audiences and local and international artists. The cross of the line, no matter how meaningless it has become through the years, as part of the frozen conflict in Cyprus, is an act of defiance against violence, singular narratives, and nationalism.”

Buffer Fringe Performing Arts Festival

Annual arts festival. October 7-9. Rüstem Bookshop, Theatro Polis and Buffer Zone/Home for Cooperation area, Nicosia. www.bufferfringe.org