26 March 2024
English
221 p.
- This thesis examines modes of photographic representation of Cyprus as a cultural domain under particular historical conjunctures and within specific contexts. It demonstrates how these modes have come to generate representational traditions, which have become dominant and persistent. Cases of photographic studies of Cyprus by outsiders within a colonial context, the first travelogue on Cyprus published by The National Geographic Magazine in 1928 and the emergence and dominance of a local romantic photographic tradition are scrutinised with the intention of showing that all these practices are informed by particular ideological considerations – products of the very exact contexts that these ‘projects’ emerge from – as well as notions about photographic practice itself. The thesis considers several cases, which can be seen to be ‘key moments’ in the history of Cyprus’ photographic representation. These show how the country has been ‘orientalised’, purified and romanticised within specific contexts. The thesis also examines vernacular photography from the period of the emergence of a local(ised) modernity, and argues that through it Cypriots, in sharp contrast to those contexts in which they are subjects of others, choose to adopt and project modern urban identities instead of traditional or agrarian ones. The thesis also showcases the work of a number of contemporary photographers who, also being a product of their time, produce work that radically reimagines Cyprus’ geography, culture and society. Their reconstitution of Cyprus as a dynamic, fluid and ‘multiple’ culture is in perfect sync with trends in other arts, in academia, as well as grassroots political movements. What began as an attempt to chart Cypriot photography has become a project about Cypriotness itself. Identity, modernity and tradition, Orientalism and the West as historical products have come to be key themes within this thesis
Photography, Ideology and the Making (and Remaking) of Cyprus
- PhD thesis
- english
-
- Photography -- Cyprus
- Identity -- Postmodernity -- Cyprus
