we can only begin to notice

Opening: 18 March 2023, 19:00 – dj set by Nana

NiMAC’s (Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre, Associated with the Pierides Foundation) show directs our gaze toward the moving image. we can only begin to notice presents a curated selection of  non-fiction films by ten female creators from Cyprus and the Cypriot diaspora, who employ the medium of film to document aspects of their and others’ experienced reality. The show explores the politics of viewing screen works inside the art institution, while making space for discussions and reflections around the multiplicities of the female gaze, contributing to the discourse on gender, representation, belonging, class, race and power, in Cyprus and beyond.

Focusing on works where the filmmakers allow their subjects to explore their agency and power, consciously avoiding traditional cinematic tropes of objectification, the selected documentary-style films raise questions around what captures our attention and what we barely notice, offering visibility through structured narrative, meditative recordings, poetic reflections and journalled incidents. Following the mundane and raw realities of the subjects, recording and exposing events, words, voices, thoughts and memories often deemed trivial or submarginal within dominant narratives, ‘another’ gaze is allowed to emerge. The Cypriot reality and circumstances have had a direct or indirect impact on the films, either by providing the subject-matter, the backdrop, or by having shaped and informed the creators’ process.

NiMAC’s main exhibition hall is turned into a screening room with a single large scale screen where the curated selection of films is shown consecutively, on loop, allowing an immersive cinematic experience. Visitors can walk in and either sit through the entire screening or pay multiple visits, allowing the space and time for the films to sink-in with no distractions. Before or after entering the screening room, audiences are invited to linger and spend time in the commons room, browsing through a selection of relevant books, references and resources, engaging in discussions around the films and the topics they unpack, while sipping coffee or tea.

Programme: 

18/03 

Exhibition opening

31/03,  21/04, 28/04 

Book Club in the commons room by George Rallis, exploring texts through alternative, feminist and queer gazes.

12/04 

Screening of Anna Kannava’s The Butler and discussion moderated by Queer Wave’s director, Diego Armando Aparici.

22/04

Panel discussion around non-fiction films and the concept of the female gaze.

Opening hours commons room:

Tuesday – Saturday: 10:30 – 14:00 & 17:00 – 23:00

Screening hours:

Tuesday – Saturday: 11:00 – 13:30 & 17:30 – 22:30

NiMAC

19, Palias Ilektrikis 19, 1016 Nicosia, T: 22797400

info@nimac.org.cy , www.nimac.org.cy, www.facebook.com/NiMACnicosia/