Iconoclastic Controversies Exhibition opens in Brasilia
On 17 September 2018, the third edition of Nico Carpentier's Iconoclastic Controversies exhibition opened in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. It will run until 5 October, at the Galeria FAU of the University of Brasilia, which is located at the UnB Campus Universitário Darcy Ribeiro at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism.
After two successful exhibitions in Cyprus, in November 2015, and in January/February 2016, this visual sociology project has now moved to Brazil. The exhibition contains 23 photographs, taken by Nico Carpentier, that investigate the monuments, landmarks and statues that are part of the everyday life of Greek Cypriots. They tell stories of heroism and sacrifice, victory, loss and pain.
(Image removed) Iconoclastic Controversies exhibition in Brasilia.
Photo by Nico Carpentier.
The photographs analyze how statues and commemoration sites in the Greek Cypriot community narrate and frame the Cyprus conflict, and how they in many cases contain references to the “Self” and the “Other”. They present a heroic “Self” to the “Own” community, or show the suffering of the “Self”, which supports the divisive nationalist ideas on the island.
But the exhibition also investigates how some (exceptional) statues undermine this traditional representation of the “Self” and offer a different narrative of the conflict, one that undermines the logics of nationalism and war.
The photographs were taken during the researcher/photographer’s stay on the island, from September of 2013 to September 2014. This ground-breaking project moves away from traditional academic texts to examine and analyze complicated social phenomena, such as those produced by the political situation in Cyprus. The idea behind this exhibition is that photographs can work just as effectively as a written academic text, in order to communicate an academic analysis.
(Image removed) Iconoclastic Controversies exhibition in Brasilia. Photo by Nico Carpentier.
More about this project can be found at the Iconoclastic Controversies webpage.
Nico Carpentier is professor in media and communication studies at the Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University.