A territory without terrain

I am participating in an art exhibition entitled A territory without terrain by artist Efi Savvides at Larnaka Municipal Art Gallery, curated by Marina Christodoulidou. The exhibition runs until September 4th 2021. I have written two pieces of text for the works of art shown. A small text printed in the form of a postcard, accompanying a photograph by the artist. And a longer text, which will be published in a book soon. More info on UNHCR website.

The solo exhibition of Efi Savvides A territory without terrain, curated by Marina Christodoulidou, will be opening at the Larnaka Municipal Art Gallery on Friday, June 18, 2021 at 18:00. The show presents a series of works dealing with the life of political refugees at Richmond Village, located in the British Sovereign Base of Dhekelia.

Over the last decade Savvides’s practice has centered around producing socially engaged art – a form of art that (also) serves as a means of contributing to public conversations and as commentary on issues of social responsibility. One of the questions arising from the exhibition asks how the experience of refugeehood, and its precarious transitory human condition of anticipation, is translated and mediated in art. Those who work closely with communities of asylum seekers, refugees, and migrant workers continuously bring to the fore the unjust treatment of these populations with the aim of ensuring that their stories are not forgotten or concealed.

Alongside the personal and family stories of the people of Richmond, Savvides’s lens and the way she presents the lives of people there reveal the absence of social cohesion and the ignorance allowed by our civic structure. Richmond and its territory are the repository of a narrative for very real and current spatial, but also human relations. Savvides’s work makes visible and restores stories situated in a territory without terrain.

Savvides aims to help the community accomplish a common goal, raise awareness, encourage conversations on related issues and above all develop human bonds. Her socially engaged art does not act as a tool of interference but rather as one that invents a form allowing communities to have a life of their own.

A territory without terrain includes texts by Tegiye Birey, Olga Demetriou, Alkis Hadjiandreou, and Christos Hadjioannou, offering multiple readings of the stories of Richmond and Savvides’s work. The exhibition is further accompanied by a publication of the same name, with contributions by the abovementioned authors.

The exhibition coincides with World Refugee Day and is part of a series of events organized by the UNHCR and other institutions in Cyprus.