The Pame Kaimakli festival returns for its 12th edition on Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 October, moving from its usual setting around Agia Varvara Square and the historic centre of the Nicosia neighbourhood to Synergasias Street, which follows the route of the former Cyprus railway.
More than 35 projects and over 60 artists and creative practitioners from Cyprus and abroad will take part, including two international artist collectives from Italy and France. Some 30 architecture students from the University of Nicosia will also create spatial installations in the neighbourhood. Performances, participatory artworks, theatre, workshops, spatial and sculptural installations and music will take place along the street and in public and private spaces around it, from 16:00 to 22:00 on both days.
This year’s theme, Collaborative Works (‘[+]εργα-σίες’, or Syn-erga-sies), plays on the Greek word synergasies, meaning collaborations, and focuses on working and making things together. The organisers, Urban Gorillas, and the participating artists explore what happens when different people, practices, ideas, histories and experiences come together to create something collectively.
The street itself is central to the theme. According to local memory, residents worked together to shape and improve it after the railway was removed, a story reflected in its name. Several projects draw on that history, including a documentary on the Cyprus railway, a train installation made with schoolchildren and an exhibition of railway archives and oral histories.
The festival days are the culmination of work that began in September, with residencies, workshops, research and interventions developed with Kaimakli residents. Italian collective Post Disaster is in residence from 13 October to 1 November and French collective Collectif Etc from 6 to 25 October, while Eidekanou Theatre is running a workshop series from 19 September to 24 October.
Since 2013, Pame Kaimakli has grown through collaboration between residents and Urban Gorillas, opening streets, houses, courtyards, rooftops and overlooked spaces to art.
Before the festival
- Wednesday 21 October, 19:00, To Thalami / La Tana del Polipo: curated screenings and discussion with Yiorgos Tsagkaris (AnimaFest), Diego Armando (Queer Festival) and Diomedes Kofteros and Kaiti Papadima (Short Film Festival), moderated by Gaia Zaccagni and Panayiotis Mitides
- Also in the run-up: Urban Gorillas’ collaborative street drawings and a workshop by the University of Nicosia architecture department’s Unit 12 students
Saturday 24 October (16:00-22:00)
- 16:00-18:00: Orientaction, neighbourhood game
- 16:00-18:00: Yasemin Kemal, participatory craft workshop
- 16:00-19:00: Carolina Vasilikou, workshop and collective making
- 17:00-19:00: Miss Marble, marbling workshop
- 18:00-19:00: Suzana Anastasi, curated walk
- 18:00-18:45: Metamorphe, street intervention
- 19:00-19:45: Eidekanou Theatre, site-specific performance by teenagers
- 20:00-20:40: Elena Agathokleous and Nektarios Theodorou, staged reading based on research by Valentine Stavrou
- 21:00-22:00: Gaba Project, music performance
Sunday 25 October (16:00-22:00)
- 15:00-20:00: Meet the Artists, project presentation
- 16:00-17:00: Valentina Otmačić, No More Divided Societies collaboration game
- 16:00-18:00: Tina Rousou, tablecloth workshop
- 16:00-18:00: Antonia Kattos and Roz, creative writing workshop
- 17:00-22:00: Stephani Andreou, Women Walk Home Archives screening
- 17:00-17:30: Annie Sofocleous and Yasemin Collective, street theatre
- 17:00-19:00: Miss Marble, live marbling workshop
- 18:00-21:00: Savvas Kourtis and Nikolas Kourtis, tango
- 19:00-19:45: Koullou|Makka collective, interactive performance
- 20:00-20:40: Ariana Oikonomou, projection and live storytelling
On both days (16:00-22:00)
- Gaia Zaccagni and Panayiotis Mitides, radio broadcast
- Evi Tselika and Constantinos Taliotis, exhibition by fourth-year BA Fine Art students, University of Nicosia
- Christina Papakyriakou, site-specific installation and collective game
- Anastasia Charalambous Barnfather, documentary screening on the history of the Cyprus railway
- Agathi Yiangoulli, train installation with pupils from Evrychou and Kaimakli elementary schools
- Urban Gorillas, exhibition of train archives and oral stories, a mobile seating area and Mobile Capsules I
- Gardens of the Future, gardening workshop
- Christiana Xenofontos, podcast screening
- ABR, installation
- Julie Michael and Stelios Antoniou, interactive installation
- Architecture Research Centre, University of Nicosia, collaborative architecture installation
- Tokyo Reels, documentary
The festival is curated by Yiorgos Hadjichristou, Teresa Tourvas and Veronika Antoniou, and funded by the Deputy Ministry of Culture’s Department of Contemporary Culture and Nicosia Municipality. The programme may change. Details are available at pame-kaimakli.org and urbangorillas.org, on Instagram at @pame_kaimakli, on Facebook at Pame Kaimakli Festival | Urban Gorillas, and by email at [email protected] and [email protected].
