UNCOVERED
Nicosia International Airport, Cyprus
(2010-2013)
www.uncovered-cyprus.com
Initiated by the artist Vicky Pericleous’s proposal for the Nicosia International Airport in 2010, subsequently submitted as a proposal to the UNDP by Özgül Ezgin and Argyro Toumazou in parallel to the peace-negotiations process, the UNCOVERED project has been developed as a long-term research-based art proj
ect by Basak Senova and Pavlina Paraskevaidou. The abandoned Nicosia Airport lying inside the buffer zone has become the site of a spatial order generated by UN control for the last 36 years since the area was declared a UN Protected Area in July 1974. Protected from whom. It designates a spatial lapse, which has been totally invisible. The project takes the physical texture and theoretical input of the airport and converts it into the space of the encounter for cultural producers from across the divided island. In this context, “memory construction”, “commons”, and “control mechanisms” form the base of the project. The airport served as a port to leave and enter the country, yet lingers in the childhood memories of the residents of the island. The once much-hailed new terminal building stands abandoned and empty, flaunting a failed modernism. History is written only to be erased and to be re-written again. Due to the significant historical importance of the airport along with personal histories, it is evident that the airport plays a critical role in memory construction of the island. Therefore, UNCOVERED processes the issues of memory and amnesia. UNCOVERED examines how the airport has been operating as a control mechanism for the island in various levels. What is at stake here is not whether this abandoned airport, which is frozen in time, could be a control mechanism or not, rather how it indicates and uncovers the operational and organizational logic of the control in the island. One can even see it as an attempt to understand what kind of protocol is manipulated and deployed by this control mechanism. UNCOVERED also questions the shattered forms of politics exercised over space, challenges the validity of control mechanisms and seeks to ask those questions that can ultimately reclaim a “commons”. The project has two phases for a duration of three years. By taking the International Nicosia Airport, located at the UN Protected Area in Cyprus as its point of departure, the project aims to engage with the people locally and work closely with the artists from the island to produce works and content that incorporate diverse critical perspectives within the continuous unstable state in the island. Therefore, the first phase is dedicated to the local perspectives and data collecting. It will be completed with an exhibition, a seminar and a book launch in October 2011. The second phase will include other partners on international level and will focus on data processing and case analysis through panels, workshops, and publications. Furthermore, this phase will give priority for commissioning and presenting international art project in Cyprus and abroad in the context of the project while extending its facilities for the art production in Cyprus. UNCOVERED has been supported by the UN, Anadolu Kültür, and EMAA along with some other Cyprus based partners.
