Re-visioning the Political in the Performance Works of Arianna Economou: The Context of the Seascape of Trauma in Cyprus

Abstract

The seascape of trauma in Cyprus has been integral to the island's history. The colonial legacies of the past, the 1974 Turkish invasion, the displacement, and the ethnic and gender divides have foregrounded contesting subjectivities of where and to which side of history one belongs. Performance art in Europe and the United States emerged as a site of contestation against the grand narratives imposed by the canon of art historical discourses and as a commentary on social-political themes. However, in Cyprus, performance art arrived later and faced barriers to being accepted as a credible mode of artistic inquiry. Traces of artistic representations in performance followed the European avant-garde and were foregrounded in the experience of aspects of political life. Artists arriving on the island with influences from abroad who rejected traditional art forms of dance and theatre were treated in dismay. Arianna Economou, one of the pioneering figures that introduced avant-garde performance art in Cyprus, unfolded in her practice theories of the performative as a political subject that challenged conventional modes of artmaking through her body and through her activism in bringing together inter-communal exchanges with Turkish Cypriots artists as well as her contribution to the performance art scene of Cyprus.