Roaming Assembly 32: ever given

Without a permanent home, students, tutors and crew of the Dutch Art Institute congregate seven times per year at different places throughout Europe (and beyond) to study together, weaving an archipelago of distinct localities and initiatives, each with their own rhythms and objectives. Curator and tutor Marina Christodoulidou is Archipelago Weaver 2025: guiding an extended journey to Cyprus. We warmly welcome you to join DAI in Nicosia for the public part of its programme, hosted by SPEL, and guest-curated by artist run space Thkio Ppalies (Peter Eramian & Stelios Kallinikou).

Roaming Assembly 32: ever given
As Palestinian peer Munir Fasheh writes “we discovered our sources of strength that were connected to our internal immune systems,” the assembly wishes to unpack the notion of the ever given, as in, what are the sources of strength and resistance that we have at our disposal, at hand, at all times? Departing from the case of the Suez Canal incident in 2021, when ‘mere’ strong winds resulted in a giant container ship named the Ever Given blocking the canal and causing a global trade disruption, we are interested in acknowledging and contemplating on forces that have the potential to traverse scale.

Cyprus has historically been a crossroads for trade, extractivism, and antagonistic colonial powers, due to its geostrategic location in the Mediterranean, and abundant natural resources. Still today, large corporations and global powers are increasingly exploiting the island for its low tax schemes and military operations. In this sense, Cyprus is not dissimilar to the Suez Canal, a narrow passageway serving global interests, bearing implications beyond its geographical boundaries. 

Now more than ever, local communities are organizing and (re)forming radical configurations, bringing together activists, artists, musicians, writers and academics from across the island, but also reviving transnational alliances across the region. 

Inspired by Munir Fasheh’s “soils”, Oraib Toukan thinks through and with the spirit of geology, specifically looking at Palestinian stone, both as image and metaphor. Natascha Sadr Haghighian asks, how does one find one’s bearings in the face of genocide and oppression? Are we at a tactical juncture in the arts that calls for a more profound review of strategies, skill sets, longings, affective investments and engagements? Ilaeira Agrotou Georgiou explores the historical position of women through traditional Cypriot dance, uncovering the history of a people under colonial power who had no access to record keeping. Choosing the Sad End is a project by Ali Hussein Al-Adawy and Haytham el-Wardany that seeks to inspire a political imagination through dialogues with four characters in four different cities engaging with national liberation, decolonization movements, and transnational solidarity in the Global South. In the presentation Waters of Cyprus, Syria, and Egypt, Stavros Karayanni poses questions that have to do with the body’s kinesthesia as inextricably linked to the various kinds of heritage that the body carries. Yael Navaro discusses people's engagements with spaces left behind from others who used to live there prior to catastrophe, through visuals from anthropological work on postwar Nicosia, Cyprus and post-genocide Antakya, Turkey. Haig Aivazian and Noor Abed enact a score composed of sound, text, and movement, reassembling elements from a recent correspondence, so as to grapple with a heightened historical moment characterised by a peak in the constant hum of genocidal violence that has structured the artists’ respective trajectories. 

Honest Electronics present a music lineup featuring steliosilchuk and x.ypno, performing unreleased material from their upcoming second album alongside previously released tracks in the South-Cypriot dialect; Kasska performs songs that give the Cypriot lyrics a new pace, while carrying themes of resilience, perseverance, and self-responsibility; dj harama, concludes the day with an experimental dance set moving through different genres while pushing the listening boundaries of the dancefloor.