A 2-day symposium presented by the Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies at the University of Kent (Canterbury) on 2-3 May 2014.
In collaboration with the Associazione Italiana di Studi sulle Culture e Letterature di lingua inglese (AISCLI) and the Centre for Studies in the Long Eighteenth Century (University of Kent). Presentations were by invitation and included contributions from eminent international colleagues from Italy, Cyprus, Malta and Turkey and UK. It was very well attended and a thrilling and happy event. It was, above all, a gathering rich in ideas and discussions, and is very likely to lead to follow-up events hosted by participants in their home countries.
Mediterranean Fractures was host to a dynamic energy that welcomed difference, diversity and experimentation. This energy was captured in all the papers and panels throughout the two-day conference; however, the panel ‘Crossing North-South Checkpoints: Literary Agency Cyprus (LAC) Energy Production and Pipelines’ provided a distinct concrete approach towards this Mediterranean energy. This was a performative panel that played with economical energy deals, which are currently in the making between Cyprus and other territories in the Eastern Mediterranean region, within a social, lived and human framework. This panel provided for those voices of Cyprus, which are most often marginalised and misrepresented in national and international domain, to have a scholarly and creative space from which to speak to the audience and each other about the truth of Cyprus. The panel was organised by Literary Agency Cyprus (LAC) – an emerging movement consisting of fifteen women that are each linked to a different part of divided Cyprus, a different part of the globe, a different discipline, and create in a different style – that collectively strive towards reading, writing and living a different Cyprus. Cyprus was actively read and constructed through crossing the north-south check-points, various different disciplines–Postcolonial and Partition Discourse, Music, Art, Photography, Literature, Film, Architecture, Philosophy, Geography, Anthropology, Psychoanalysis and Cultural/Political History – and through inter-generic experimentation and trafficbetween the fictional and non-fictional, and the written and performative. Through this play, LAC actively negotiated, repaired and created pipelines between the north-south divide, by which they manipulated the problems of the fracture or partition to allow themselves the agency and rights to create a Cypriot Solidarity in a Differential Cyprus
The panel consisted of scholarly, literary and artistic performances by five LAC members, and a three part exhibition. Bahriye Kemal, who led the panel, introduced LAC and presented a paper on those practices of solidarity that enable the members to make and produce a differential Cyprus. Nicoletta Demetriou explored the production of a discourse on commonality by probing theories of musical rapprochement and living with (musical) difference. Alev Adil’s performance used digital projection to excavate layers of the mythic, historic and every-day resonances and dissonances that shape becoming-Cypriot when that journey is a moving towards alterity and indeterminacy, living with your head in the clouds and a gas field in your guts. Poetry, philosophy and photography were interwoven in this performance that refused and confused border patrols and identity politics. Aydin Mehmet Ali, the founder of LAC, presented creative pieces on the experiences of women caught up in conflict, both personal and political, which gave voice to cultural and political issues that are often silenced by taboo.The three part exhibition consisted of a photographic exhibition ‘Perspectives’ by Kathy Kattashis, a film poem ‘small forgotten war’ by Alev Adil, and a playful exhibition, ‘Worldy Literary Artistic Zone’ that was collectively created by the fifteen LAC members to capture fully the difference and diversity of LAC and the Cyprus they produce.
This panel was simultaneously an artistic creation in the making that was collectively produced by LAC presenters and the audience – those who were happy to participate. LAC envisaged the production of an experimental film: the session was recorded by two professional camera men/women, by LAC presenters and the audience on hand-held cameras and phones. Everyone who recorded was also asked to share their comments in writing. The recordings and comments are currently being edited by LAC, resulting in an experimental film created by everyone for LAC and for Mediterranean Fractures.
This experimental panel provided not only a new and concrete way of writing, reading and living Cyprus against the dominant constructions, but it also contributed to the dynamics of the conference which offered a new approach, collectivity and forceful energy towards understanding the Mediterranean and its Fractures.