Photography and Cyprus: Time, Place and Identity by Liz Wells & Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert & Nicos Philippou

Author:Liz Wells & Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert & Nicos Philippou
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: I.B.Tauris
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 7.1 Takis Demetriades, ‘1970, Kambi: Grandfather Kyriakos! Michelangelo could have copied his face for one of the prophets he carved in stone’, from The World of Cyprus 1960–74 (p. 82). Credit: Takis Demetriades

Demetriades’ best moments are when he veers away from the colonial paradigm turning his gaze to a more introspective space that allows imaginative possibilities for the subjects photographed. For example, in one of his photographs from 1973, an old woman is brushing her sumptuous, grey hair with an almost mischievous look in her eyes and an expression of joy in what I perceive as her ageing but imposing sensuousness (Demetriades 2006: 103). Of course, the large cross on her chest is a salient religious signifier that checks the margins of any interpretation of her ageing looks and gendered performance. And, in another image from 1963 (p. 27), a young and dark haired man is seated on a stone ledge in a neighbourhood of Kyrenia. Demetriades captures another historic moment in this image; the moment when Kyrenia’s streets were electrically lit for the first time. The deepening shadows invite a certain pensiveness and a nostalgic feeling that is not merely decorative but induces a productive and critical contemplation of space, tradition, architecture and the young man’s attractive figure as part of the composition of this image (see Figure 7.2). These moments signify important departures from the orthodoxies that I critique in this chapter. However, in marking a trajectory only tangential to the established course, they remain moments that are somewhat private, telling of thoughts and feelings unrelated to the dogma that shapes postcolonial politics in Cyprus.

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