Εκκλησία της Μνήμης / Church of Memory

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Icon Room White Shrine: Recollection An exhibition of work completed during a residency at Monagri. “There is a small church in a cave near Kolossi, where a man was outside watering trees in the hot July afternoon. He spoke about the miracles that happened in the cave, to him and to others, and he spoke about how the tractors moving earth  above the cave will soon make the church fall in on itself. His mother, whose refugee housing faces the Kolossi castle, spoke about the local church as if it was the one in which she was married. She sang traditional wedding songs into the tape recorder…’Is it catching me,’ she said? The Church of Memory project began at a crossroads of stories and questions. And in a way, that is the essence of any religious practice: stories heard, read and told, and questions about how we live our lives. People often ask where, exactly, the idea for this project came from. I have no answer, but I am a different person for having met the people who came into my life because of it. Laughing, mourning, picking fruit, turning the volume down on the TV set… I meditated on each person, each story, in the quiet of my studio in Monagri. I am deeply grateful to Richard and Alison for having given the project a cradle. Memory, in the context of this work, seems to be a third area on the island of Cyprus, no matter whether the story comes from a refugee or an immigrant. There are the two parts of the island, and the Way it Was. This is not to say that memories of church always belong in childhood, but among all the interviews there is a common sense of innocence, protection, ultimate beauty and mystery. There were stories about people taking  emotional refuge in them, now. Despite that, the sites of churches, parishes exist without walls, and existing churches  are renovated or fall down. The church, like humans, like memory, is changing. This project is dedicated to Cyprus.” – Elizabeth Hoak Doering

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