EΠIMEΛHTHPIO KAΛΩN TEXNΩN KYΠPOY

E.KA.TE.
CYPRUS CHAMBER OF FINE ARTS

MEMBER OF IAA INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF ART

To:

Subject: Proposal for Perceiving Academy Residency in Cyprus, 2019.

Dear,

First of all I would like to congratulate you for your magnificent work and introduce you to our
organization, The Chamber of Fine Arts (E.KA.TE.).

E.Ka.Te. - The Cyprus Chamber of Fine Arts, established in 1964, is the oldest and largest art
organization in the country and is an important partner to the Cyprus Ministry of Education
and Culture. Being the official representative for Cyprus at the International Association of
Arts, E.KA.TE has been involved in global cultural politics, active in promoting artists’ rights
and creating opportunities within the Visual Arts.

We have been following and greatly respect your work and have been especially interested in
the Residency Organized by the Finnish Bioart Society SoLu together with the Kilpisjärvi
Biological Station. As we understand you have some larger concern for the co-production of
knowledge, learning, craft and technical expertise.

PERCEIVING ACADEMY 648km is a public art project, we have the chance to choreograph
this coming fall in Cyprus. One which takes the form of a higher-learning academy of a new
type of education, one that teaches us ways to connect with our environment and topos, in an
effort to understand the deeper transformations taking place in this era of utter confusion
between subject and object, during the Anthroposcene.

And so, we would like to extend an invitation for you to come to Cyprus, as our guest host
and/or speaker. We are positive that your level of work and innate knowledge would be a
valuable asset to the residency, as well as the island’s cultural progress.

Below you will find the project outlined and the proposed schedule. We hope that you are
interested in our proposal, whether it is for the entire duration of the residency, or for part of it
Please let us know if there are any changes we could make in order to better accommodate
your schedule.
Katerina Neofytidou is also for further any questions at personal email,
katburner@yahoo.com and phone no: 357-99378295.

This residency is kindly funded by the Cultural Services, Ministry of Education and Culture
Cyprus
PERCEIVING ACADEMY 648 KM, 24/10- 5/11, 2019. - PROJECT OUTLINE

Following the success of our 2018 artists’ residency program, EKATE is very pleased to
announce this year’s program, Perceiving Academy 648 km, a two-week program, in
autumn 2019, for an animated and interdisciplinary festival of lectures, workshops, events and
actions, performances, politics and discussions.

Perceiving Academy was created by Eric Ellingsen and Lynn Peemoeller, and had its starting
point in Institut für Raumexperimente (Berlin University of Arts). It continued in 2014 as
Perceiving Academy Thessaloniki, and in 2018 as Perceiving Academy Cyprus, organized
and hosted by the Chamber of Fine Arts Cyprus.
The release of a Vinyl album and a website is expected in December 2019.

Εκατε
https://vimeo.com/278827728
https://www.facebook.com/events/909177725953504/permalink/944331149104828/

On October 24, 2019, the Academy is re-launching its platform for an alternative exploration
of the coastline of Cyprus. The start and end point is at selected coastal area next to the
buffer zone.
The coast of Cyprus is constantly a constantly changing, vibrant and permeable 'cellular'
boundary, which is grasping for breath. It serves mainly as a resource for industrial, military
and tourist industry interests, but does not enjoy much cultural development nor a sustainable
environmental treatment. The toxins of our over-consumption mentality have no way out. Our
coasts are already changing to something else. The global ecological crisis and irresponsible
development policies are at the heart of our research.
During the very intense two-week program, we will once again mobilize our platform as a
social sculptor /transformer. At the same time we will mobilize the platform's international
network with our guests and invited speakers. Our workshops will consist partly of
interdisciplinary coastline research led by experts and partly of self-organized forms of
learning. Through relevant partnerships with communities and institutions we have locate
public coastal areas, which will be our classroom and studio, with our headquarters in our
Nicosia facilities.

During our course the Academy will focus on:

a) An understanding of existing development scenarios. We will expand on the impacts of the

Anthroposcene, as well as on potential post-sustainability scenarios of a post fossil society.

b) How do we perceive our environment and how does it perceive us? How can we measure
things in the environment’s terms? Here we will work with particular senses, perception
exercises and psycho-somatic exercises, as a method for focusing on the present, but also as
a way to push the boundaries our perception through empathy.

At the end of the residency, the Academy will ‘knit’, in a final mosaic, the experiences and
experiments in an event / exhibition, to ask critical questions about urgent new forms of
education, where we learn how to write a viable geo-story, geo- not as a "return to nature, but
as the return of object and subject back to the ground" (Latour).

Perceiving Academy 648km is a team of about 10-12 young professional artists, architects,
theorists, musicians, archaeologists, scientists, etc. This experience is also partially open to
the general public as a form of art that generates knowledge through perception and
participation.
Proposed schedule:

Oct.24th the Academy launches in Nicosia with talks, presentations, briefing, meeting the
participants
Oct.25th - Oct. 28th travelling at several of the chosen locations for research, workshops and
lectures.
Oct.30th - Oct. 31th lectures and workshops in Nicosia (afternoon only)
Nov. 2nd - Nov. 3rd travelling at the remaining chosen locations for research, workshops and
lectures.
Nov. 4th - debriefing in Nicosia (afternoon only)

We will be very happy to hear from you. Thank you in advance for your time.

Sincerely,

President of the Board of Directors

Chamber of Fine Arts,
Katina Kosta.

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P.O.Box 22436 – Παίωνος 11, 1016 Λευκωσία/ 11 Peonos Str. 1016 Lefkosia,
Cyprus
Τηλ./Tel: 22 466426, Φαξ/Fax: 22466424
E-mail: ekatek@cytanet.com.cy, ekatecy@gmail.com
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