Of Monumental - An interdisciplinary exhibition on Cyprus' public art monuments

Opening: Saturday, 29th of November 2025, 19:30, Nicosia Masterplan Hall (Ledras Street Crossing)

Duration:  29/11-20/12/2025, Open on Mondays & Thursdays 10:00-17:00, or via appointment by email at contact@visual-voices.org

“Of Monumental” is an ongoing intercommunal artistic and research initiative that opens a critical space for reflection and active engagement with the public art landscape of Cyprus. It interrogates the relational nature of public art monuments, proposing their expanded understanding, not as static commemorations of the past, but as participatory and socially embedded objects that articulate shifting meanings within the public sphere.

Conceived by visual artist PASHIAS, and grounded in his previous work, “Of Monumental” is implemented by the intercommunal cultural non-profit organisation Visual Voices, in collaboration with architect and academic Dr. Dimitris Venizelos, researcher Selin Genç, audiovisual artist Rahme Veziroğlu, and curator Melina Philippou. It is funded by the Deputy Ministry of Culture under the program Politismos II, 2025.

The project’s first public presentation takes form as a collective installation, opening on Saturday, 29th of November, 19:30, at the Nicosia Masterplan Hall, Nicosia Buffer Zone (Ledras Street - Lokmaci Crossing), examining 11 public art sculptures of cultural significance across the divide: “Birth” by Maria Kyprianou (2009, Limassol), “Big Potato” (2021, Xylophagou), “Clepsydra” by Theodoulos Gregoriou (2009, Larnaca), “Democracy Sculpture” by Zehra Şonya (2019, Nicosia), “Horses” by the Near East University Sculpture Workshop (2021, Nicosia), “Jaffa Orange” by Sevcan Çerkez (2018, Lefke), “Lying Down” by Naz Atun (2021, Nicosia), “Miners Strike Monument” (2018, Lefke), “The Liberty Monument” by Ioannis Notaras (1973, Nicosia), “The Poet” by Costas Varotsos (1983, Nicosia) and “Rainbow” by Nikos Kouroussis (1976, Nicosia) that was taken down later on. 

This selection reflects an inquiry into the plural functions of public art in Cyprus, from formal commemorations of historical events to vernacular symbols of livelihood and contemporary gestures of abstraction or critique. Observed together, they reveal Cyprus’ public art landscape as a terrain of negotiation between institutional authority and community agency. 

The exhibition unfolds as a collective installation, anchored by a series of public performance interventions translated into film works by PASHIAS, introducing the contemporary body in its corporeal, vulnerable, powerful, queer, fluid, and subversive forms at each monumental site. These are framed by the situationist explorations of Rahme Veziroğlu and interwoven with fragments from the monuments’ biographies, through archival materials and newly conducted interviews with the following contributors: Dr. Nadia Anaxagora, Naz Atun, Sevcan Çerkez, Dr. Ali Efdal Özkul, Theodoulos Gregoriou, Dakis Joannou, Nikos Kouroussis, Maria Kyprianou, Zehra Şonya, Giorgos Tasou, Dr. Yiannis Toumazis, Costas Varotsos.

Together, these works expose the mechanisms through which monuments acquire meaning, and how that meaning shifts through time and collective encounters.“Of Monumental” seeks to provoke renewed interactions with public legacy, opening up a critical dialogue on city space as a site of civic exchange, reformulating narratives of identity, memory, and authorship, inviting us to learn from existing histories, while speculating on future ones. 

The accompanying research study of the “Of Monumental” pilot, titled “Conversation with a sculptor / Conversation with a sculpture”, will be released in January 2026, in collaboration with the Visual Artists & Art Theorists Association – phytorio for their series of events “Minor Gestures Take Root in the Cracks”.