Visual Sociology on the Cyprus Problem

A "spin-off" project

The pictures were taken during the researcher/photographer’s stay on the island, from September of 2013 to September 2014. During a year-long study on Cypriot Community Media, professor Carpentier quickly came to realise that “history is crucial to understanding the Cyprus Problem, particularly the 20th century history.” His work on the statues and commemoration sites became for him a way to grasp and understand this complicated history. Originally “a spinoff-project, with no plan, became important, almost accidental, just because of itself”, admits the photographer, who was fascinated by the language of the statues.

This ground-breaking project moves away from traditional academic texts to examine and analyse complicated social phenomena, such as those produced by the political situation in Cyprus. The idea behind this exhibition is that photographs can work just as effectively to communicate an academic analysis. Quite possibly they work even more intuitively. At the same time, “Cyprus, with its many wonders and deep traumas, is an environment where the entire world can learn from, in the way communication functions and in the way that conflict functions”, says the professor.