Sessions, the multifaceted programme of queer happenings, launches its second cycle of operation from June to December 2023, taking over the entire building of the State Gallery of Contemporary Art – SPEL. The opening will take place at 7pm on Thursday with a performance by Koralia Stergides and music by Nana. The project will continue to be in progress throughout the summer, by Dimitris Chimonas, Lex Gregoriou and their collaborators, as a staged improvisation. On September 2, the official programme will begin with performances, concerts, festivals, screenings, workshops, talks and parties.

At the entrance of Sessions, the Reading Room, curated by Loizos Olympios, returns for the duration of the project under the umbrella of the Cerebral Gym, a series of activities revolving around printed material – group reading sessions, archiving and bookbinding workshops, book presentations, performative readings of poetry and other texts, theatre, film screenings, etc. The importance of queer archival practices is central to the programme’s design. Additionally, friends of Sessions will enrich this temporary anti-library with publications from their own personal collections, making this a collection of collections, a collective bibliography of queer texts, fostering a culture of reading and sharing.

On the ground floor, various musical instruments, clothes, microphones, speakers, and lights are some of the tools that the public is invited to use to activate Pista Cacophonias. As a long-lasting improvisation, Pista Cacophonias gives space to the noise or even harmony that arises in the attempts at communication. On the first floor, which communicates with the ground floor, the Sessions team, Endrosia collective, Becoming press and other artists and activists make use of the old exhibition structures of the State Gallery to create environments for different modes of exchange and collaboration in a common space. The design transforms the museum’s exhibition space into a public studio, an open rehearsal space, a noisy playground, and a wild garden for plants that give and take from each other. Dialogue, synergy and participation transform the garden’s apparent disorder into harmony.

The second floor, with specially designed seating and a stage, will host dance and theatre performances, rehearsals, screenings, workshops and parties. With simple DIY constructions and the necessary technical infrastructure, the Theatro space is an empty space for rehearsal, action and witnessing. The programme will start in September with performances every Saturday until the end of the year, and will include unconventional performances, concerts and screenings, parties, ambitious failures, experimentations with the theatrical conventions, identity, personal and collective expression, and the sense of belonging.

The Cloud social space was set up on the roof of SPEL. The Sessions hangout with Soft Sculptures cushions by Belinda & Eva Papavasiliou (contributed by the Morir Sonando project) offers space for hanging out, drinking and vegan bites. Overlooking Nicosia, every Thursday at sunset and until the end of the year, 26 artists are invited to present a live show. Utilising a microphone, a laptop and two speakers, one person at a time is invited to play music, talk, read and sing about any topic and in any way they want on the rooftop of SPEL as part of Cloud Transmissions. The Urban Gorillas will complete the scenographic experience by installing AGORA on the roof; a reconfigurable structure for public spaces that can be configured according to the needs of each evening. Cloud will be open Tuesday – Saturday from 5pm to 12am.

The visual interventions of Orestis Lazouras, Danae Laou, Savvas Kyriakou and Marios Pavlou are just the beginning of a series of improvisational gestures, as the Sessions project will transform and evolve throughout its operation. Seven monthly publications, written by seven different individuals or groups using the Sessions takeover of SPEL as a trigger, will accompany the actions, and the overall archive created will be published in book form at the end. The overall experience will be enriched by the aromas of floricienta iuvenalis.

Sessions X SPEL

Programme opening with live music and interactive artistic creations. June 29. SPEL State Gallery, Nicosia. 7pm. Tel: 22-479600. [email protected]