Public sculptures and ceremonial behaviors in the public sphere: Cyprus as a case study

Public sculptures and ceremonial behaviors in the public sphere: Cyprus as a case study

Cyprus is an exemplary case of emotionally and historically charged site. The sculptures situated in its public spaces preserve a strong visual narrative element and militaristic character and reflect to a high degree social notions and political behaviors. The vision alongside the wording, in the form of slogans or identity data, obtain a complementary role in these monuments and shape a complex, multi-layer ideological construction strengthening the collective memory in the internal of the social body.

Public sculptures have a dual function as they build cohesions both between general and individual concepts based on the interpretation of their iconographic and symbolic components. These cohesions nourish ceremonial behaviors and become part of society’s cultural structure: they intervene in the everyday life shaping ethical codes and imposing distorted approaches of reality. It is interesting to note that the element of visual narration is dominant on the Cypriot flag too, drawing the attention to the past heroic sacrifices of the country and, thus, identifying the Cypriot nation to a heroic pattern altogether. The sacred dead heroes create sacred territories, real or imaginary at the same time, and become the fertile soil for introversion and reaction against the ‘other’ which is differentiated to the ‘us’.

In the above context, artworks are deprived from any aesthetic quest. They become merely the means through which emotion, focused on the grief of the heroic sacrifice, the innocence of the victim and lamenting, is expressed. A comparative study of the island’s public sculpture proves that modern sculptures are extremely rare and usually make part of the outdoors premises of private entities.