Bringing Cyprus’ art and rural communities together

10 years of a ‘nomadic’ festival will be marked this year with clay and collaboration finds ELENI PHILIPPOU

Xarkis Festival celebrates 10 years this year. A travelling event that sets up camp in different rural communities of the island, Xarkis is about unifying tradition, contemporary art and collaboration. Always true to its Greek-Cypriot roots, the festival sticks close to Cyprus reality. Even its social media posts tend to be written in the Cypriot dialect, so it comes as no surprise that its name is a Cypriot word.

“Xarkis comes from the ancient Greek word eks’ arhis,” says festival founder Christina Skarpari, “which means from the beginning, signalling a re-start, growth, development and marked with a sense of optimism. At the same time if you say Xarkis as a verb (ξαρκής), it also means you’re being slow. In the spirit of slowness, we are embracing our eastern Mediterranean heritage, aiming to learn from a slower pace of doing things.”

It is true. Many of the festival’s activities and performances I have witnessed over the years feature this air of leisureliness, perhaps also affected by the pace of life in Cypriot villages. Local and international artists gather every year to present new projects and interact with the local community.

The story dates back to 2012, when Christina was on a gap year questioning following a path in fashion design. A group of middle-aged women and many hours of weaving showed her another way. “My interest in this sphere started when I began attending classes at the Cyprus Handicraft Service in 2012. I had previously studied fashion design in a rather commercial design school, and in just three years of higher education, I had developed a deeply unsettling feeling about making things for commercial and corporate purposes.”

She began attending basket weaving classes and her first lesson – besides knots and threads – was rather surprising. The teacher “helped me understand that weaving can become an act of mindfulness. I remember feeling it was very much like yoga, the mental kind. The practice of weaving helped me focus and become more in tune with the present. It also occurred to me that those 12 training sessions consisted of myself and four women above the age of 65.”

As Christina was discovering the innate wisdom of folk crafts, she realised this world needed to be shared. She started exploring how artisans live and it prompted her to start collaborating with others engaging in such spaces. She headed to rural Cypriot communities that showcased local heritage. Just as the economic crisis hit, Xarkis Festival was born as a social experiment to testing DIY and resilience ideas, exploring communal identities amid a global crisis.

The first edition took place in Arsos village and since then it has toured the island. This notion of changing location each time is in the spirit of the festival’s roaming nature. But what does it mean to be a ‘nomadic festival’?

“For me, a nomadic festival means a festival that is non-static, roaming and fluid in its essence,” explains Christina. “It alludes to both adventure and change. A nomadic arts festival is challenging to organise, possibly more than a festival which stays in the same place. Every time we change location we encounter new communities, and develop new relationships, which take time to build and of course involve risks. A nomadic festival makes sense for us however, as our work is site-specific and derives from the stuff we encounter in each community.”

So far the festival has been held in Lofou, Koilani, Polystipos, Lympia and Agros. Some editions took place in the summer, some in autumn. This year, with mid-October dates, a new location is being added. Kornos in the Nicosia district will host both the Xarkis Multi-Residency programme and the festival that follows it. A series of personal encounters between Christina and potters from Kornos using red clay – a characteristic of the area – sparked the idea.

“While researching endangered craft practices of Cyprus, and ways to raise awareness while amplifying their value, I figured that the red clay pottery of Kornos deserves some more attention, and this is something we can offer through Xarkis Festival.”

This year, with a KYPRIA sponsorship and a bigger team, Xarkis will return faithful to honouring folk culture. As it welcomes artists from Cyprus, Europe, Egypt, Ecuador, the United Kingdom and Syria, the 2023 agenda will focus on collaborative action. Sympraxis is the theme and the artists will gather from October 1 to 12 to work together and present their results in the three-day festival from October 13 to 15.

Workshops and eco-pedagogical interactive, pottery workshops from Kornos craftspeople, a Cypriot fiesta, games of backgammon, futuristic walks, a performance for cleaning black-eyed peas, live music performances and many other events make up the 2023 programme.

As the new space is being prepared and resident artists are deep in work, Xarkis looks forward to bringing people together in a new location which still has whispers of folk Cypriot life.

Xarkis Festival 2023

Multi-disciplinary arts festival. October 13-15. Kornos village, Nicosia district. www.xarkis.org