Nicosia exhibition examines queerness
Goethe-Institut Cyprus, Institut Français de Chypre, Queer Wave and NiMAC present ‘nono, bad timing!’, a process-based exhibition focusing on archiving queer times and spaces. The project brings together materials from the Marseille archive of Mémoire des Sexualités and the Schwules Museum in Berlin. The exhibition will be inaugurated on the opening night of this year’s Queer Wave Festival, September 20, and run until November 9.
From the month of October, ‘nono, bad timing!’ will evolve into a laboratory for new proposals by Cyprus-based cultural practitioners. A touring exhibition titled Queer As German Folk will also be presented in its entirety at the Goethe-Institut in Nicosia, within the scope of this same project.
The exhibition starts with the recognition that temporal, spatial and sexual dissonance towards the ‘universality’ of existence are intertwined. With a non-linear approach, the project aims to destabilise well-rehearsed rhythms and discourses to suggest new possibilities for what archiving might mean in this context: how can silenced histories be written and what/who can these processes empower?
The Mémoire des Sexualités association has gathered a large number of documents on the story of homosexuality in French and international social life, tracing its history from 1978 to 2015. The images included in the exhibition focus on the activities of the Summer Universities of Homosexualities in 1979.
The material from Queer as German Folk highlights spaces of empowerment networks. This project takes the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots as an opportunity to offer insight into the history of queer movements in the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic, and reunited Germany since the 1960s. Particular emphasis is placed on the manifold relations with US movements.
Adopting the role of resident archivists, Cyprus-based cultural practitioners explore: the necessities and joys of a library/reading space (Loizos Olympios); the use of photography as a tool for exploring identity and constructing narratives (Logan Bellew); collecting stories and bringing personal archives in public space (Diomedes Koufteros); institutional critique and creating archives of feelings (Gabriel Koureas); dramaturgy and performance (Evita Ioannou).
nono, bad timing!
Process-based exhibition focusing on archiving queer times and spaces. September 20-November 9. Goethe-Insitut Cyprus, Nicosia. Tuesday – Saturday: 10am – 9pm. www.goethe.de/cyprus