MELITA COUTA
Spectators in a Ghost City
Sculpture Installation - Video Art Performance 2023.
The art installation ‘Spectators in a Ghost City’ represented the Cyprus National participation in the 15th Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2023. The work places the occupied city of Famagusta, abandoned since 1974, as a contested-spacebecoming-spectacle. Focusing on the scenographic process of scaling down, Couta has created a series of sculptural maquettes based on the city’s modernist architecture. These maquettes, together with portable models in walking practices, are approached as symbolic objects for communicating issues on displacement, space politics, surveillance and agency. In that sense, scenographic methodologies and walking practices are approached as a political act of resistance, a tool for negotiating artistic practices and real spaces of conflict. The work was commissioned by The Cyprus Theatre Organisation. It was awarded the Golden Triga Award by the PQ Jury 2023.
