Between 4 August – 6 September 2023, young artists from the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities Iliada Charalambous, Nurtane Karagil, and Aycan Garip had a residency at NeMe, to edit their experimental video specifically created for the Living with others project, The One Sea We See.
The video The One Sea We See is a collaboration between artists Nurtane Karagil and Iliada Charalambous with the support of cinematographer Aycan Garip. Situated in the district of Famagusta, Cyprus, the video focuses on, the areas of Laguna, and Liopetri river exploring the environmental degradation of the waters and marine life in the Famagusta district caused by so-called development projects by the tourist and fishing industries. The shifting habitat of the sea is seen through the perspective of the fishermen and scientists working in the area, whose research and livelihoods are deeply affected by such transformations. Through personal accounts and observations, The One Sea We See attempts to map the struggles faced by the fishermen in the two areas and looks for potential reparative narratives that establish a sea, divided amongst various regimes and interest groups, as a commons.
Iliada Charalambous is an artist who recently graduated from the Dutch Art Institute, Roaming Academy. Charalambous works with the idea of citizen assembly as a form of counter action to the fractured environment shaped by state politics. She works in a variety of collaborative constellations to create spaces for individuals or groups to gather and share ideas, methods and tools for collective organising and potential forms of resistance. She is currently co-organising with Serda Demir the series Ware Tegenmacht, at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2023-24. She has recently exhibited in Positions: Elsewheres, at Stroom Den Haag, 2023, Mingling with Againness, at Halle 14, Leipzig, 2023, Traveling Farm Museum of Forgotten Skills, at Casco Art Institute, Working for the Commons, Utrecht, 2022, 8th International Degrowth Conference, at Nest ruimte voor kunst, The Hague, 2021. She lives and works in Rotterdam.
Nurtane Karagil studied Fine Arts at Hacettepe University, Turkey, and has an MA from the University of Brighton. She has been engaged with Cyprus’ socio-political environment on various levels which in turn set the tone of the majority of her work. Using a wide range of artistic mediums such as painting, illustration, sculpture, video, and photography, her art conceptualises the power of memory, dreams and surreal fantasies in juxtaposition with everyday life situations. Through this contrast, she invites the viewer to an uncanny zone where the edges of reality are somewhat sharper.
She exhibited her work in various exhibitions in the Czech Republic, the UK, Northern Ireland, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus; collaborates with local and international NGOs to create workshops or curricula with a focus on ecology and human rights; and is currently working as an art lecturer at the Eastern Mediterranean University in Famagusta, Cyprus.
Aycan Garip received her B.A. in Liberal Arts (Humanities and Classical Languages) from Ohio Wesleyan University (2009) where she was active in student dance organisations as a board member, choreographer and dancer as well as performing in theatre productions put on by the university’s Theatre Department. In 2012, she completed her M.A. in Visual Arts and Visual Communication Design at Eastern Mediterranean University. While studying, she became part of an artists’ collective putting on exhibitions and happenings including Happening!, Etkenlik, and All Debord!; she also co-managed, with artist Nurtane Karagil, the open space Pikadilli, in Famagusta. In 2013, she received an EU scholarship to do a Ph.D. in Arts and Humanities; she completed a practice-led research study for her thesis, Public art interventions in Northern Cyprus: Communication and Interaction in Disconnected Communities, at the University of Brighton in 2017. During her time there, she performed in several theatre productions for the Brighton Fringe Festival. She continues to be active in artistic and creative circles in Cyprus, and has collaborated with various artists for the creation of several performances, including Malakut, Palimpsest, Kesin Birşey Yok, Garip Bir Yerden, and Tales from the Future. She is featured in Inal Bilsel’s album Paradise Lost, for which she co-wrote the lyrics of multiple songs; she has also produced and directed music videos for the reggae band Bunfyah, and is working on a series of audio-visual essays, titled In Case I Forget.
