In the sea of the setting sun: new photography exhibition

The State Gallery of Contemporary Art – SPEL is set to present a new exhibition welcoming photographers, artists and visual practitioners. The In the Sea of the Setting Sun – Contemporary Photographic Practices and the Archive opens on November 11 and features 17 Cypriot artists based in Cyprus or abroad, whose work engages with contemporary photographic practices, focusing especially on the research and use of the photographic archive.

Until February 25, visitors can explore the relationship between contemporary photographic practices and the concept of the archive, exhibition curator Dr Elena Stylianou says.

“Although a term that has appeared in art discourse since the 1960s,” she says, “‘archive’ is not only still widely used but also changing, while digital and emerging technologies have altered our relationship to it in imaginative ways. This exhibition begins with the notion of the archive as an open concept, activated by the ‘archival turn’ in art. The works in this exhibition negotiate the tensions between romanticised understandings of the archive as a dusty place where one can retrieve treasures of the past and connect with history, and the archive as a metaphor or concept directly linked to the construction of interdisciplinary knowledge, systems of political imagination, power structures, the formation of national consciousness, and patterns of exclusion.”

As such, the exhibition’s 17 artists explore the concept of archive through photography and its crossroads with video, sculpture, painting, printmaking, sound and performance. “Some do so humorously and playfully,” says Stylianou, “some approach it with the diligence of a researcher or an archivist, while others vacillate between idiosyncratic narratives and official discourse.

“The curator’s work becomes part of these fields of experimentation, dialogue and research,” concludes the curator, “itself contributing to the formation of yet another archive that insists on remaining open to expansion: an archive of contemporary artistic practices from Cyprus. As the question of origin and identity is complex and contested, particularly in relation to the island and its history, the exhibition ultimately aims to also serve as an open archive of the intersections of artistic practice, topos, identity and politics.”

The exhibition comes just before the 6th International Conference of Photography and Theory which will take place from November 17 to 19 in Nicosia.

Participating in the event are the works of the artists: Alexia Achilleos, Marianna Christofides, Andreas G Coutas, Haris Epaminonda, Mustafa Hulusi, Stelios Kallinikou, Nicolas Lambouris, Orestis Lazouras, Anastasia Mina, Christodoulos Panagiotou, Haris Pellapaisiotis, Nicos Philippou, Efi Savvides, Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert, Constantinos Taliotis, Maria Toumazou and Rahme Veziroglou.

In the Sea of the Setting Sun – Contemporary Photographic Practices and the Archive

17 Cypriot artists participate in exhibition, curated by Dr Elena Stylianou. November 11-February 25. State Gallery of Contemporary Art – SPEL, Nicosia. Opening night: 7pm. Tuesday-Friday:10am-6pm. Saturday:11am-7pm. Tel: 22-479600