Christodoulos Panayiotou
Christodoulos Panayiotou | Republic of Cyprus b.1978 | I Land 2010 | 160 black and white slides, two synchronised slide projectors; ed. 2/5 | Images sourced from the Press and Information Office, Republic of Cyprus | Purchased 2011. John Darnell Bequest | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | © The artist
The Hand, the Eye & the Heart | 1 October 2011 — 12 February 2012 | GOMA | Free admission
Christodoulos Panayiotou’s slide works reflect on expressions of individual and collective identity in the partitioned Republic of Cyprus. In this work, Panayiotou has used archival images to obscure and redefine the transformative modern history of the divided nation. I Land features photographs from 1960–77, from a state-administered archive, marking the period in which archbishop and head of the autocephalous Cypriot Orthodox Church Makarios III held office as the first President. While acknowledged as a national hero for leading his country towards self-determination and independence, Makarios III has also been criticised for abandoning the goal of reconciliation between Turkish and Greek Cypriots. Presented alongside the slides are photographs, by the same photographers, of everyday situations. The contradictory sets of images articulate what Panayiotou has described as ‘the official history and the accidental records of ego-histories’, underscoring the relationship between the photographers and their choices in documenting life in Cyprus.
