Pylon
/ˈpʌɪlən/

Responding to Pylon’s invitation to think of ways to make contemporary art more accessible and relevant to a wider audience, curators Elena Parpa, Thalia Spyridou and Evagoras Vanezis present three exhibitions and a series of events under the title Safely Held with the aim to contribute to the public’s engagement with art and its practice. The programme unfolds throughout the course of seven months, from May to December 2023. The exhibitions’ overarching concept evolves in response to pylon, the chosen name of the newly-found art and culture initiative. There are structures in society and in governance, in education and in thought, in expression and behavior. Some are rigid, others fragile or defective. They could also be supportive, comforting, even protective. Irrespective of their properties, structures speak of the need for things to be arranged and held together. The three exhibitions seek to encourage the concept of structures being shapeable, permitting reconsideration of established narratives.

How to use the fragility and uncertainty of social conditions as a driving force towards a softer approach to contemporary experience, that opposes and challenges the rigidity of organized structures?

What are the urgent questions that animate our relationship to language, and how do artists explore them? The exhibition approaches the theme of cultural exchange by focusing on the practices of translation and rewriting as creative tools.

How does an artwork conceived for the Limassol Municipal Garden as a structure within a structure, challenge our understanding of memorial art and at the same time calls for an expanded concept of the function and structure of a public space that has been the subject of a recent controversy?

In seeking to engage the public with the ideas and questions explored, the exhibitions will be accompanied by a series of events within and beyond the exhibition space.

EXHIBITION 1

Not knowing yet - possibly not knowing ever

Artists: Mariel Kouveli, Sara Naim, Dala Nasser and Maria Toumazou
Curator: Thalia Spyridou

Duration:
26 May-15 July 2023
Opening hours: Thursday-Friday 17:00-20:00
Saturday 11:00-14:00

"It seems to me that counterfeiting final shapes and holding on to them is a temptation." ¹

‘Not knowing yet - possibly not knowing ever’ is an exhibition of works by Mariel Kouveli, Sara Naim, Dala Nasser and Maria Toumazou. It brings together artists who use their immediate surroundings; culture, body, material and land as a way to understand the characteristics and limits of their structures, how we connect to them, their ambiguity and absurdity. The artists move between historical, scientific and poetic narratives, overlapping materials and practices that involve sculpture, photography, collage and moving image.

A sense of not knowing is communicated through the works in the exhibition. Works that are in changing state, works that came out of accidents, accidents used to make work, inability used as a mechanism. The exhibition is situated in a state of fragility and uncertainty. Through the themes explored, audiences are asked to challenge the rigidity and power of structures that we hold on to - be they social, historical or psychological, and approach them from a position of vulnerability. Used as a driving force, fragility and uncertainty can provide a softer ground from which to relate to the world, becoming a creative tool. The exhibition poses questions; how do we move forward by being open to things working imperfectly, vulnerably, uncertainly? What can be achieved once we adopt a position of not-knowing?

^1. Emily Ogden, On Not Knowing

Safely Held Texts-Ain’t Faith-Miriam Gatt

Safely Held Texts - Holdings - Edited by Aristotelis Nikolas Mochloulis

Exhibition Floor Plan + About the Works + Bios