Tomorrow we have the chance to see history in a different light, to move away from the text we are taught in school and get up close and personal with what we call the self and the other, through photography.
The exhibition, entitled Iconoclastic Controversies: a Visual Sociology of Statues and Commemoration Sites in the southern part of Cyprus by Professor Nicos Carpenter offers a visual sociology on the Cyprus Problem.
The photographs were taken with an intent to help the photographer, and the viewer, to examine and analyse complicated social phenomena, such as those produced by the political situation in Cyprus.
The idea behind this exhibition is that photographs can work just as effectively to communicate an academic analysis as text books can. It is also very possible that the images captured by the camera can work even more intuitively.
The photographs analyse how statues and commemoration sites in the Greek Cypriot community narrate and frame the Cyprus conflict, and how they in many cases contain references to the self and other.
The exhibition does not only concentrate on such statues, it also brings to our attention some which undermine this traditional presentation and offer a different narrative of the conflict, and of the identities of the people involved.
Information
Exhibition of photographs on the Cyprus problem. November 13 at 7pm, until November 21. Home for Cooperation, buffer zone in Nicosia. Monday-Friday: 9am-8pm and Saturday: 10am-5pm. Tel: +357-99-406743.
By Maria Gregoriou for Cyprus Mail
