NiMAC [Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre, Associated with the Pierides Foundation] organises Civilian Sensitivities, a full-day workshop that will be held on Wednesday, 26 September 2018. Israeli women artists Fatima Abu Roomi and Shira Zelwer, as well as curator Dr. Sigal Barkai, have been invited to the workshop, which seeks to generate a creative dialogue between Israeli and Cypriot artists and curators. This workshop aims to serve as a platform for critical analysis, the development of concepts, practices and processes concerning the civil societies from which the participants come. The ultimate objective of this process is to explore the prospects for the organisation of potential future exhibitions in Cyprus and Israel, under the title Civilian Sensitivities.
Civilian Sensitivities will be dealing with identities of women artists coming from various civic communities in Israel and in Cyprus who relate critically and politically to their own communities, as reflected in their art.
The workshop will address the following issues:
● The role of women within contested spaces and communities with enduring social, political and economic unrest
● Women’s bodies and voices as loci and forms of subversion
● Ways of coping with gender roles and relations
● Perspectives on cultural, religious and ethnic traditions regarding women in families
● A woman’s place with regard to the private and public space
● Individual, national and communal identities
● Changing identities in a transnational world: Migration/mobility of individuals and groups, issues of borders and boundaries, and shifts in cultural and religious beliefs.
The programme will involve women artists living in Israel and Cyprus and coming from different religious and ethnic communities such as: Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze, Greek Cypriot, Turkish Cypriot, Armenian et al.
Due to the limited number of spaces available you are requested to send in your duly completed application form by September 10, 2018, accompanied by a short bio, a brief statement (up to 250 words), and samples of your work (in a digital format), all demonstrating how your practice relates to the above line of thought.
Programme of the Workshop: Wednesday, 26 September 2018, Theatropolis OPAP
10:00-10:30 Introduction by the curators Sigal Barkai and Yiannis Toumazis 10:30-12:30 Presentation by the Israeli artists Fatima Abu Roomi and Shira Zelwer
12:30-13:00 Questions
13:00-15:00 Lunch break
15:00-16:30 Round tables: sharing of ideas and open discussion between participants
Applications should be sent to info@nimac.org.cy by Monday, 10 September 2018