Transmundane Economies: Bellapais Abbey at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (DE)
14.01.2022 – 06.02.2022
Architectural design in collaboration with Dakis Panayiotou.
Sound design in collaboration with Jazmina Figueroa.
[...] Bellapais Abbey, the ruin of a 13th century monastery in northern Cyprus, is the subject of investigation for the site-specific, Virtual Reality installation Transmundane Economies. Testament to many lives, following the different colonial periods over the centuries, the monastery went through changes, architectural but also cultural, organizational and operational. The artist address the long-lasting, shape-shifting history of Bellapais Abbey to discuss the codes and hierarchies that have been established and inscribed into it over the years. Visitors to the exhibition are immersed in the partial reconstruction, based on drawings by George Jeffrey from 1912, of the monastery’s Gothic refectory by means of VR technology. The virtual architecture, which in its digital translation appears to be sacred yet free of Christian intentions, in turn exposes the socio-political fabrication of the monastery. [...]