Abstract: | Nine members of the international interdisciplinary research group, the Creative Centre for Fluid Territories’ (CCFT) contributed to Cyprus Buffer Fringe 2020, through a collaborative project: Fluid Territories – Nomadic on-line dialogue: Belonging & Displacement. This took two forms: an online exhibition created through a unique dialogical and negotiated creative exchange, between internationally dispersed contributors, on-line via weekly meetings over a period of 2 months, disseminated within a dedicated web portal in the public domain (Research Catalogue); and working with invited, interdisciplinary voices to create a series of online, live, ‘Travelling Colloquia’ with invited participants (Oct-Nov 2020), engaging in a dialogue about place, belonging and displacement, refocused and highlighted in response to the unfolding conditions created from COV-19. All culminating in three events for Cyprus Buffer Fringe VII, 2020. Building on our contribution to Cyprus Buffer Fringe 2019, ‘The Urban Glenti’ [Urban Feast], CCFT members, along with invited other voices, creative practitioners, educators and cultural producers contributed, shared, expanded and explored the Cyprus Buffer Fringe 2020’s theme of ‘Belonging and Displacement’ with the Research Catalogue acting as a container of dialectic thoughts, and the live events that formed part of the Buffer Fringe’s programme, a dynamic space of dialogue. The intention being that the whole practice-led and dialogical process be read as a series of inter-related ideas, critical positions and visual relationships, and as a durational response exploring the concepts of place, belonging and displacement. CCFT Nomadic Online Dialogues (weekly throughout Oct-Dec 2020) CCFT Travelling Colloquia with invited participants (Oct-Nov): 16 October 2020: Ellada Evangelou of the Home4Cooperation (NGO focused on intercommunal dialogue) 30 October 2020: Alex Hale, Archaeologist, Edinburgh on ‘Archaeology of the Contemporary’. 6 November 2020: Vasilis Vasiliou, Street/Graffiti Artist working either side of the Buffer Zone in Nicosia, Yiannis Toumazis, Director of NIMAC, research based in abandoned architectural space of Famagusta, and Alex Hale, Archaeologist. 20 November 2020: Jenny Brownrigg, Director of Exhibitions, GSA. ‘Research Displacement’: discussing her research into the photographs of Margaret Fay Shaw based on Canna, and her connections with Cyprus. 27 November 2020.: with Dr Anastasia Shesterinina, Dept of Politics & International Relations, University of Sheffield, ‘Mobilizing in Uncertainty: Collective identities and war in Abkhazia . Buffer Fringe VII 2020 Events – Contributions and Responses to CCFT Nomadic online dialogues: 3 December 2020: Anastasia Shesterinina Despo Pasia (Museum Educator based in Cyprus) Vasilis Vasiliou Alex Hale 5 December: Helen Angell-Preece (PhD researcher, Glasgow School of Art) Noah Rose (PhD researcher, Glasgow School of Art) Emily Gray (PhD researcher, Nottingham Trent) Andrew Lock (PhD researcher, University of Bergen) 6 December: Ellada Evangelou Catherine van Olden Maria Varanakkidou Monica Day Carmen Olaechea Home4Cooperation Anastasia Shesterinina |
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Additional Information: | Creative Centre for Fluid Territories – People-places-processes (CCFT), is a peripatetic international research group that contributes to discussions about interdisciplinary practices and how they articulate critical insights about place and displacement, place making, marginality, belonging and occupation. Our core participants exploit their educational, creative, collaborative and other international connections to build a rich dialogue between creative individuals and institutions across borders and boundaries.
CCFT have adopted a methodological practice that involves a combination of fieldwork, empirical research, phenomenological and auto-ethnographic methods, underpinned by theoretical understanding and practice-led processes. We use two key qualitative methods in our meetings: Travelling Colloquia and Nomadic Dialogues.
Travelling Colloquia provide a means of exploring the meaning(s) of ‘place’ from different locations and perspectives. The research identifies this as a dialectic method – a place for knowledge to be expanded and the tension between conflicting ideas and investigations to be explored through formal discussion. The dialogical nature of the Travelling Colloquia is further enhanced by the fluidity of the concept of Nomadic Dialogues to explore exhibitions, meetings, literal and metaphorical journeys, and conversational walks in process and between points and places – real or virtual.
Both these methods were drawn into specific and meaningful focus as we found ourselves, at the time of Cyprus Buffer Fringe 2020, in the evolving circumstances and challenges produced by COV-19. Since the whole Buffer Fringe VII festival was forced to move online, CCFT members developed a unique, dialogical and negotiated ‘live’ creative exchange (Nomadic Dialogue) weekly, on-line over a period of 2 months, within a dedicated web portal in the public domain. We utilised practice-based methods, exploiting the creative intersection provided by the dedicated on-line web space (Research Catalogue) to be in dialogue through the process of making, documenting and capturing emerging ideas relevant to the Fringe’s themes.
As part of the process we also enabled educational collaborations between Bergen, Glasgow, Nicosia and Nottingham to further open up critical dialogue around the emerging themes and processes with students, both undergraduate and doctoral researchers; the latter also taking part in a live event for Buffer Fringe 2020.
CCFT is grateful for the support received from the Buffer Fringe office, so our thanks go to:
Lefki Lambrou, Hayriye Rüzger, Nihal Soganci, Mary Spyrou , Maria Vaarnakkidou, and also to Antonis Pouliasis.
Our particular thanks go to Ellada Evangelou for including CCFT in the Buffer Fringe 2020 |
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Exhibitors names: | Brind, Susan, Harold, Jim, McMullan, Shauna, Higgins, Duncan, Souto, Ana, Sandborg, Johan, Lien, Linda, Lock, Andrew, Hadjichristou, Yiorgos, Lillo, Emil, Cooper, Mike, Menzies, Alex, Higgins-Brown, Grace, Angell-Preece, Helen, Cannon, Ciaran, Chan Hon Sen, Aurelie, Floridou, Sevina, Garget, Lily, Jaeger, Andrea, Kanay, Serap, Llinas Casas, Francisco, Makela, Selma, Mancic, Ivana, Moazemi Goodarzi, Paria, Ramsay, Hebe, Rose, Noah, Smith, Zara, Strzoda, Amy, Themistokleous, George, Van den Hoven, Chiara, Viña, Maria and Wilson Hilferty, Katharine |
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