Biennale Arte 2024
Exhibition Overview
Vigil Workspace
1. Statement in solidarity for Palestine & reading of Palestine Hologram
2. The nexus of border violence and surveillance technologies across the Cyprus maritime borderscape
3. Bring your forgotten memories and a stone
4. Curse Reverse
5. MYRRHA
6. Last Wave: A Listening Vigil
Publication
Vigil Workspace
1. Statement in solidarity for Palestine & reading of Palestine Hologram
2. The nexus of border violence and surveillance technologies across the Cyprus maritime borderscape
3. Bring your forgotten memories and a stone
4. Curse Reverse
5. MYRRHA
6. Last Wave: A Listening Vigil
Publication
Lower Levant Company
Elvin Brandhi, Jacek Chmiel, Emiddio Vasquez, Khaled Khalifa, Bassma Koshok, Poncili Creacion, Kuthi Jin, Alexandros Xenophontos
Poster design by Doris Mari Demetriadou
For the month of September, and as part of the ongoing Vigil Workspace residencies at the Cyprus Pavilion, Lower Levant Company concludes its stay with Curse
Reverse: a sonic exorcism of its premises, inviting Elvin Brandhi, Poncili Creacion,
Kuthi Jin, and Jacek Chmiel, to carry out their respective improvised spells along
with some Whatsapp voice messages from Egypt by Khaled Khalifa and Bassma
Koshok.
The performance follows a 1939 BBC world radio transmission that featured a performance of King Tutankhamun’s trumpets: a three millennia-old set of trumpets found in his tomb during a 1922 excavation in Egypt. People around the globe tuned in, but according to legend, the performance of said trumpets unleashed upon the world the ‘Tutankhamun Curse’ that allegedly led to World War II.
The performance follows a 1939 BBC world radio transmission that featured a performance of King Tutankhamun’s trumpets: a three millennia-old set of trumpets found in his tomb during a 1922 excavation in Egypt. People around the globe tuned in, but according to legend, the performance of said trumpets unleashed upon the world the ‘Tutankhamun Curse’ that allegedly led to World War II.
Setting the legend momentarily aside, Rex Keating who was the original organiser of this radio transmission/performance, had previously served as the assistant director of both the Egyptian State Broadcasting (ESB) and the Palestine Broadcasting Service (PBS). Just before the 1948 Nakba, he would move to Limassol, Cyprus, along with the employees of the British covert radio operation, Sharq al-Adna, becoming its director and eventually the founding director of the Cyprus Broadcasting Service (CBS). Three years into it and just after his departure, the CBS antennas were bombed by the EOKA A’ nationalist movement, and were eventually rebuilt into what is now known as the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC).
In short, through a sequence of legends, transmissions, spells, destructions, and
rebuilding of infrastructures, we take a moment to ruminate on history’s revenants
as well as the present, as witnesses of the ongoing genocide in Palestine and what
feels like the brink of World War III. The performance yearns to break the spell
that was once cast upon the region and serves as a call for perseverance and resistance. In that spirit, we would like to dedicate this concert to Ruth at Moufflon
Books, for being an immutable source of inspiration in our practices.