How we make sense of our world and our place in it will be focus of town’s upcoming Biennale

Huge balloons and lights reflecting the history of Larnaca as seen through the eyes of international installation artists will be included in the fast-approaching Larnaca Biennale, which will see the seaside town welcome a host of artists in various locations.

This year’s biennale will be held from October 12 to November 28, organised by the NGO Artion, which has invited world-renowned artists Ann Tarantino and Steve Messam to put their spin on the city and its culture.

The biennale showcases arts and culture both locally and internationally, and is the biggest event of its kind in Cyprus, attracting over 60,000 visitors. This year, a total of 117 artists will congregate in Larnaca, as the city transforms itself into a celebration of creativity and passion.

For 2025, the Biennale looks at lines and traces, as the support upon which we can imagine metaphoric, symbolic, and physical expressions of how we make sense of our world and our placement in it. Exhibits will range from how lineages and traditions develop, how stories narrate, how thoughts are constructed, to how we move, how we connect and communicate, and how we create and produce meaning.

In addition to the main exhibition, the Biennale will host a series of artistic and cultural events across the city and district of Larnaca, such as concerts, dance, theatre, lectures and workshops.

Tarantino and Messam are well known in contemporary art, with practices that constitute the need to engage with the “urban space and provoke open dialogue between citizens and the urban environment”, says Larnaca Biennale artistic director Vassilis Vassiliades.

Tarantino is an Italy/USA-based artist whose work focuses on placemaking. Through a combination of digital and analogue methods, she’s known for her conversation-starting pieces which explore the relationship between time, space, culture and movement. She makes use of delicate lines and bursts of colour and aims to evoke the complexity of the modern world and its shifting landscapes.

During her two-week residency in Larnaca, Tarantino will draw inspiration from Larnaca’s topography – from its rivers and waterbeds to its walking paths and historic routes – to create a study into linework which will reflect the city’s historical and cultural identity, through a laser-engraved installation to be placed in a central window front.

In collaboration with Youth Makerspace, Tarantino will create a laser-engraved installation which will be lit up in the evening. Upon the artwork’s dismantling, it will be broken into small pieces, which the public will be able to collect and take home as a keepsake.

“Topoanalysis” window installation by Ann Tarantino at Mixed Greens

Messam, meanwhile, is based in the UK and is globally renowned for his striking, large-scale and ephemeral installations tackling environmental themes. He uses large inflatable installations in bold colours and shapes, often described as “bigger than a house” to reimagine the everyday environment. “The installations have an element of surprise as they pop up seemingly overnight,” people have said, and he invites them to experience space through a new point of view.

Following a summer trip to Larnaca, the artist and the Biennale team carried out on-site research to develop an installation specific to one Larnaca landmark. A few days before Biennale’s opening week, Messam will again travel to Larnaca to set up his installation at a historic building, the location of which will be revealed only on installation day. Following its reveal, the public will be able to witness it up close and experience the role of art in a public space.

Messam’s Below installation in Beijing

“The response has been overwhelming as creators from any imaginable place on earth will visit our city to express their very own definitions of art,” Vassiliades says, admitting he is curious and excited to see what artists from all over the globe bring to the event.

He also hopes it will underline the island’s role in the international art scene. “What this island lacks is extroversion. We need to understand that culture can be expressed locally, there is no need for us to send Cypriot artists abroad when the island is so full of love for the arts.”

But “having the artists here, shaping their works in real time, brings unique depth and authenticity to Larnaca Biennale,” says Vassiliades. “With the participation of Steve Messam and Ann Tarantino, Larnaca Biennale reaffirms its place on the contemporary cultural map of Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, establishing itself as a platform that offers meaningful, multi-layered contemporary art experiences to audiences in Cyprus and the wider region.”