green line_a loop, a line, a limbo

In green line, Cornelia Mittendorfer has taken Cyprus as an example to pose questions about how to perceive and depict traumatic events. The artist uses photography to examine the complexity of one of the violent and still unresolved conflicts of the present day. The focus is on how spaces change, including their repurposing and secularisation during the more than 40 years since the occupation of the North. The photographs are accompanied with portraits of the people who have entrusted their stories to the artist. This work deals not only with destructive power, but also with a resistance to destruction. Together, the photos and essayistic texts in the book create a space that is fragmented yet resonant, where memories echo with fault lines and contradictions. 

After almost five decades of limbo, people are tired of it. Memory fades. Living with an arbitrarily drawn dividing line has also shaped thinking. The dissolution of the de facto border seems almost inconceivable. In the exhibition installation, Cornelia Mittendorfer takes a step forward and, starting from the photographic work, opens up space beyond memory with videos, texts, sound pieces, objects and a performance. See text by Stratis Pantazis and by the artist.

 

See also the interview by Vassiliki Vayenou

performance Linz, 2021

sound | text, 18:30 min, 2021, sound: Cornelia Mittendorfer, (using field recordings/Sea Organ of Zadar, Croatia), text: Cornelia Mittendorfer, speaker: Christopher Barber

performance Athens, 2023

Camera and Editing: Fadi Amraish


 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Video 2 | uncertain ground, mute, 2:39 min, loop, 2021

registrated in Cyprus near to the bathes of Aphrodite (Latsi) (2017), stills Varosha | Famagusta, No-Go-Area (2013).

 

   

 

 

 

 

video 1 | untitled, mute, 1:03 min, loop, 2021

Catherine Ludwig & Cornelia Mittendorfer


Video 3 | comments on the line, german | english, english subtitles by Stavriana Dourachali,  40:03 min, 2021. 10 comments on the line (Dieter Schindlauer - human rights expert, Lena Knilli - art worker, Martin Breindl - media artist and curator, Elena Ioannidou-Ortner - political scientist, Manfred Oppermann - media artist, Ksenia Yurkova - artist and curator, Enrique Guitart - art worker, Gerda Lampalzer - conceptual media artist, Claudia-Maria Luenig - artist and curator, Paul Chatterton - environmentalist


ballgame

metal basket, 21 balls made from crumpled maps, cork, cloth, green tape, dimensions variable, 2023. 


limbo #1 and limbo #2, analog b/w photographs, scanned, printed on Hahnemühle matt fiber paper, 111 x 260 cm, photo dimensions 101 x 82,4 cm, 2018/2022



Statement 2021 (3 parts, only in german), filmed by Oberösterreichischer Kunstverein Linz: