Project Experimentation

 

A short clip demonstrating my experimentation for my project on Cypriot identity and history. This video consist of footage I recorded on my camcorder at a national memorial (with political intent) on the 24th of July, 2023, four days after the 49th anniversary of the Turkish military intervention (and consequently occupation) of Cyprus. The church in the village of Marathounda (where my grandfather is from) is annually decorated with miniature Greek flags and Cypriot flags, as well as flags of the Greek-speaking Cypriot national guard.

When I speak of Cyprus, even if I do not explicitly speak of division, it is always present. Being from the south or Greek-speaking part of Cyprus, I will always carry an unconscious bias which people of the north or Turkish-speaking part also carry, dialogically. There are places in the north I may never see, places I never think to visit, due to the implemented idea that I am unwelcome. That my intentional absence from these spaces is a protest in itself. To that I ask, is it a protest or defeat? Every year the border that distinguishes south from north, "Greek" from "Turk", is lined with tourists eager to see what the other side, the occupied side, holds; expecting to fathom a one-hundred year history within their brief visit. After which they go to their home countries and spread one-dimensional, propagandised falsities about their experience that they feel defines the current socio-political situation in Cyprus. 

These annual memorials exploit those lost in order to present a Hellenicist, divisive, ahistorical perspective in the name of national pride. I used slowmotion in order to distort the pride politically associated with Greek flags and turn it into something more sinister and ominous, which is what the historical erasure and divisive politics of both Cypriot governments and institutions represents to me.