A special art exhibition with works by students of Rizokarpasos High School and the High School of Peace and Freedom in Deryneia and presentation of the book of the same name is hosted from Tuesday 7 June at the Children 's Educational Center of the Nicosia Municipal Arts Center [NiMAC].
Home is a powerful word - a word that is central to our lives. But what is its significance? Is the house a place? Is it a geographical location? Is it an architectural edifice? Is it a city or a village, a building or a garden? Is home a place where we live? Is it an emotion associated with a particular place? Or does the home consist of the people - friends and family - around us? Is it natural or imaginary, conceptual, psychological? Is the home part of who we are, of our identity?
In particular, how does the home relate to educational theories and practices and especially to art education, which has its own creative and expressive language? Do home and identity, as mentioned in art education, acquire an additional dimension in conflict areas?
"Home and Identity" is the context in which the visual and art teacher Tula Liasi bases her research: a project that seeks to provide answers to how these issues can be integrated into art education in conflict areas, where home and identity are constantly changing, redefining and negotiating. The research focuses on two schools: the Rizokarpasos High School and the Peace and Freedom High School in Deryneia. Thirty students participated in the program: with written narratives and works of art, which were then analyzed to determine the factors that influence students' individual ideas about home and how they interact with their identity.
The exhibition will be inaugurated by the Presidency Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs and Overseas Affairs Fotis Fotiou, on Tuesday, June 7, 19:30. Duration: 7 - 17 June 2016. Tel: 22797400, Opening hours: Monday-Friday 10: 00-15: 00
The book was published under the auspices of the Presidency Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs and Overseas Affairs Mr. Fotis Fotiou and was implemented with the kind sponsorship of the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority.
Tula Liasi
Tula Liasi was born in Agia Triada in 1957 and lived there until she was eighteen. In 1975, after being trapped for a year, she left to study first in Athens and later in the Netherlands, where she went to complete her studies in the visual arts. Twenty whole years passed before she was finally allowed to return to her village. At first for a few hours, later for a few days and from 2003, after the opening of the roadblocks, she is allowed to stay for three months, as a tourist rather than as a resident. With her parents trapped and her brother missing for forty years - recently found in a mass grave and identified by DNA - Tula feels the need to use her professional artistic platform not only to express herself but also to draw attention to difficult life of the trapped.
The fact that Tula lives in a free country like the Netherlands makes her feel the contradictions between her two worlds more and more obvious. As an artist who believes in the power of art, she has been creating two series of works over the last decade, dedicating them to her fellow villagers in order to honor their difficult lives. The Achaean Coast (2004) and The Rusty Testimonies (2013). In these works he tries to record not only the loneliness, the silent resistance and the hope of the mostly very old trapped, but he tries to depict the deterioration of the quality of life in the occupied ones during the last forty-two years.
Source: Liberal