November 14, 2020 12 pm & 3 pm EST
Buffer Fringe Performing Arts Festival
The Gallatin Galleries is thrilled to be working with Buffer Fringe to exhibit two performances on November 14, 2020 which can be viewed socially distanced from the sidewalk or via our livestream.
The Buffer Fringe Performing Arts Festival (BFPAF) was developed in Nicosia, Cyprus by the Home for Cooperation team in 2014 to provide a platform and community for local and international artists to express their ideas on sensitive issues in creative ways. Artists are invited to meet and interact amongst themselves and their audience as a means to connect peacefully, regardless of background, ideology, or identity which have become highly politicized topics for the people of Cyprus. The theme for their 2020 festival, displacement, reflects on migration and pilgrimage, fluidity of movement, and political conflict in the Mediterranean while addressing climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and war. The festival provides a space for artists to discuss the personal or collective traumas experienced by the people of Cyprus, promoting better understanding, respect, and trust in one another. Buffer Fringe questions the preconceived notions of the performing arts by bridging cultures and highlights a new relationship between art and society.
History Lesson by Argyro Nicolaou (12pm) History Lesson explores the intergenerational effects of internal displacement and the inchoate histories they produce. A researcher discovers films shot in Cyprus before 1974, material that has been ‘displaced’ from mainstream Cypriot consciousness in favor of mono-cultural interpretations of the island’s history. She uses these films to learn about ‘the other side’, filling in the gaps of her refugee mother’s family history, and creating an alternative history curriculum for the island. The researcher’s performance is conducted as a lesson: What if we used artistic sources, instead of jingoistic narratives, to create and teach our history? Could we get closer to the truth? History Lesson understands displacement as a metaphorical ‘transport’ of the audience across time and space, but also as a shared experience with ethical ramifications. The performance harbors a desire to return to a vision of Cyprus as a whole; before the island was displaced from itself.
Placeholder by Monica Anna Day (3pm) Of the many ways we are different, there is one thing all humans share: bodies. And a body that is out of place is a body that feels no peace. Placeholder will facilitate a conversation directly with bodies that have been impacted by displacement. We will explore how bodies experience “place” from three angles: 1) What are the markers, the boundaries and the signifiers of emplacement? 2) What is the impact of displacement? 3) How do we adapt and re-place ourselves when necessary? This project begins by gathering sensorial data from individuals of displaced groups, and then assembles and shares the data in the format of an artistic exhibit and performance. By allowing the wisdom of the body to speak in the visceral language of art, fresh ideas and new solutions to the challenges of displacement may emerge. Multi-media performance, 30 minutes.