BOCCF to launch interlinked exhibitions on social issues

The Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation (BOCCF), as main coordinator of the Horizon 2020 research programme ‘Redefining the Future of Culture Heritage, through a disruptive model of sustainability’ (ReInHerit), in collaboration with the Museum of Cycladic Art and the Graz Museum, is co-organising the following three temporary digital exhibitions on the subject of social issues.

• ‘ReThinking CRAFTSMANSHIP’ (BOCCF)- March-May 2023
• ‘ReThinking CONFLICTS’ (Graz Museum)– June-September 2023
• ‘ReThinking IDENTITIES’ (Museum of Cycladic Art)- October-December 2023

The themes and reflections of these exhibitions are the different skills and competencies we cultivate to address social issues, as well as the way in which museum collections can serve as a starting point for the display, interpretation and framing of social issues through a pan-European perspective.

The first exhibition ‘ReThinking CRAFTSMANSHIP’ will open to the public on March 9, 2023 at the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation.

Its aim is to highlight different types of intangible cultural heritage, such as traditions, knowledge and techniques, passed down to us from our ancestors in the field of craftsmanship, and in relation to natural materials, the processes they undergo, and how they relate to sustainability and climate change.

As part of intangible cultural heritage, craft practices represent not only the traditions of the past, but also modern production methods that focus on sustainable use of natural materials and local production.

Using both digital and analogue media, the exhibition makes use of museum objects from all three museums to explore different aspects of the subject in question, and to provide an opportunity to rethink the way we perceive our intangible cultural heritage, our relationship with the environment and our identity.

At the same time, each museum will host lectures, workshops and other activities covering the range of the three exhibitions.

‘IDENTITY OBJECTS’ exhibition

Alongside ‘ReThinking CRAFTSMANSHIP’, the ‘IDENTITY OBJECTS’ exhibition by the artist Christos Symeonides, will redefine and examine the concept of identity through characteristic examples of intangible cultural heritage, through an audio-visual installation.

Via digitisation, customs, oral traditions, dances, music, songs, skills or techniques that constitute evidence of traditional, popular and scholarly culture, are transformed into oversized faces in an identity frame.

The exhibition invites the viewer to explore their own identity. Through these digital ‘masks’ we discover new dynamics between “inside” and “outside”, past and present, local and global. Faces become the means of projecting an “intangible cultural heritage” and, by conversing with it, they highlight the direct relationship with the creator. How does the human being constantly change, recreate and reshape itself?

Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation

• Opening hours: 10am-7pm (weekdays & weekends)