ECO ART INCUBATOR CYPRUS : Sites Embodied : Curriculum, Catalogue, Contemplations

In April 2017, artists Nancy Holmes and Denise Kenney were invited to facilitate Eco Art Incubator Cyprus: Sites Embodied, in collaboration with the European Dance Network and Dance Gate Lefkosia as part of the programming for the Eco Art Projects associated with Paphos 2017 European Capital of Culture. The Eco Art Incubator Cyprus workshop and performance series brought together local and visiting artists from various disciplines throughout Europe to research ecological art methodologies as they pertain to a particular contested site. These artists shared their expertise and used site-specific embodied research to generate new artistic and ecological resonances. The intent was for artists to experiment with their own practice through a thematic lens and to seed practices for ongoing engagements in this region. This catalogue documents that experience. It is a collection of the writing and images generated over the workshop period. It includes several of the exercises and methods participants used. It also include a record of the performances and works that were created over the workshop period. Artists were Arianna Economou (CY); Isabel Andrés (DE/ES), Yiannis Avraamides (CY), Zoe Balasch (DE/ES), Bernadette Divilly (IR), Geopoetics Group: Anna Tzakou and Antonis Antoniou (GR), Athina Georgiou (CY), Panayiota Gregoriou (CY), Lara Haworth (UK), Ida Johannesen (NO), Nina Ossavy (NO), Natalie Tsingis (CY), Nefeli Tsiouti (CY); Ergenc Korkmazel (CY); Justyna Ataman (UK).

Cyprus, like every idyllic spot on earth, has its share of ecological troubles--from developers wanting to put waterfront hotels on turtle habitat to the most severe water scarcity problem in Europe. The Akamas peninsula is located in the northwest of the island of Cyprus. Because of its isolation and its short brutal history as a British army firing range, Akamas missed out on the rampant development of the 1980s and 90s and still has wonderful natural places, small out-of-the-way villages, and lots of people trying to figure out how to develop better, with nature in mind, not just money. The Akamas Peninsula, and in particular, the village of Androlikou, seemed to be a place that could teach us something and also that might value some artistic attention. With this context always in mind, the workshop began. The participants were an internationally diverse group, though except for facilitators Denise Kenney and Nancy Holmes, everyone was from Europe. But it was the new Europe. These artists had travelled around--the Spanish artists now lived in Berlin; the British artist had attended graduate school in Canada, the Norwegian artist had trained in Paris, the Greek artist was doing a PhD in England. Even the Cypriot artists with us either had trained elsewhere in Europe or were living elsewhere and had come back to Cyprus for this workshop. So where was "home" for these artists, and how would the concept of "home" play out in this eco art workshop? How do the artists' experiences of rootlessness and hopelessness about finding a sense of home affect their response to this place? What is the value of ecological art and site-specific art activities in such a migratory context?

This catalogue records not only thoughts and reflections on these questions, but the eco art curriculum Holmes and Kenney developed for this project, and creative work and links to creative work produced by the participants.

Nancy Holmes has published five collections of poetry, most recently The Flicker Tree: Okanagan Poems. She is the editor of Open Wide a Wilderness: Canadian Nature Poems. She is Associate Professor in Creative Writing at The University of British Columbia in Kelowna, British Columbia. With a colleague, she has established the Eco Art Incubator (http://ecoartincubator.com ) which supports ecological art in the Okanagan Valley. She also collaborates on an eco art project about native pollinators called Border Free Bees http://borderfreebees.com/ . Nancy won the 2015 Robert Kroetsch National Teaching Award in Creative Writing for her innovative student project, Dig Your Neighbourhood and she is working on a new book of poetry and a book of essays.