RE-VISIONS

Actus Anima and the French Institute of Cyprus are jointly organising RE-VISIONS, an International Contemporary Photography Residency Programme, to be held in Cyprus from 19 to 27 September 2026.

This initiative draws its inspiration from the spirit of the Bicentenary of Photography (Bicentenaire de la Photographie), the commemorative initiative launched by the French Ministry of Culture to mark 200 years since the creation of the first photographic image by Nicéphore Niépce. Following the Bicentenary's call “to celebrate ways of seeing” (célébrer les regards) and its founding conviction that photography was born of “a utopian dream: that it was possible to narrow the gap between reality and its representation,” RE-VISIONS turns its gaze towards Cyprus, approaching the island not as a mere backdrop, but as an active agent in the shaping of History.

Curated by Io Paschou (Ηώ Πάσχου), PhD in Art History and Assistant Professor at the University of West Attica, RE-VISIONS brings together five photographers and visual artists from Egypt, Cyprus, France, and Greece: Samar Baiomy (Egypt), Constantinos-Sophocles Constantinou (Cyprus), Romane Iskaria (France), Gaëtan Soerensen (France), and Ioanna Spentzou (Greece).

The RE-VISIONS International Contemporary Photography Residency Programme approaches Cyprus as a place where personal and collective memory converge, intersect, and are rewritten over time. As an ever-shifting temporal palimpsest, Cyprus becomes a field of observation and re-examination through different artistic perspectives and contemporary photographic practices. The participating artists are invited to engage with the traces of the past, the multiple versions of memory, and questions of identity, proposing readings of a place that continues to be reinterpreted through the artistic gaze.

The Programme seeks to strengthen international creative networks, actively support original artistic production, and bring new aesthetic perspectives to photography. Echoing the enduring relationship between reality and its representation, which the Bicentenary of Photography traces back to the very origin of the photographic medium, RE-VISIONS contributes to highlighting the tangible and intangible heritage of the island through new artistic readings of place. Hosted in the village of Malounta, in the Nicosia District, the RE-VISIONS International Contemporary Photography Residency Programme creates a field of experimentation, research, knowledge exchange, and intercultural dialogue, connecting contemporary artistic creation with the history, memory, and landscape of Cyprus.

Upon completion of the Programme, the artists’ work will be presented publicly at Garage Art Space in Nicosia, from 26 November to 6 December 2026. This presentation will mark a first step towards a hybrid, evolving exhibition, which will travel abroad in 2027, broadening the dialogue that RE-VISIONS develops across Cyprus, France, Greece, and the wider Mediterranean.

Officially part of the Bicentenary of Photography, RE-VISIONS is supported by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Institut français, as part of the strategy for the international development of the Cultural and Creative Industries, as well as by the Deputy Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Cyprus and the Embassy of Greece in Cyprus.