A four-day event that addresses how geopolitics collides with the fate of people in vulnerable positions as represented across media and within the cultural sector in Cyprus.
This year’s edition collects a plurality of voices focusing on themes related to migration, displacement, buffer zones, and internationalisation. Drawing from the avant-garde traditions of the 1960s, where artists embraced community-building, collectivism, social engagement, playfulness, and freedom of expression, The event aims to map out the fragments of the sociopolitical landscape of Cyprus and the social issues emerging from it. It examines the role of noise as a critical necessity in today’s contemporary society.
By producing Reclaiming Memory Archives in Helsinki, Noise Traffic bridges the local and the global; the Mediterranean and Nordic contexts. The program positions Cyprus as a case study and reflects on Finland as both a host country and a site where global migration narratives converge. The four-day event program includes artworks, participatory performances, lecture performances, talks, film screenings, sound art, live concerts, and workshops by Finland-based transnational artists and cultural professionals from Cyprus.
On Sunday the 5th October, the exhibition doors open at 18:00 followed by the artist Efi Savvides’ documentary film Camp Pournara (2023 / Cyprus) with English subtitles at 18:45 which documents asylum life in Cyprus and navigates the effects of the 1974 Turkish invasion imprinted on local ideological divisions concerning asylum seekers and migrants’ presence on the island. Followed by Working session nº4: in each step, a fragment performance lecture by performance artist Daniela Pascual Esparza at 19:30 who is commissioned by Noise Traffic to explore the biodiversity and socio-ecological interaction of the buffer zone in Cyprus which is partly reclaimed by nature. The evening will continue with the participatory performance Kräftegleichgewicht | Balance of Power by the artist Rafaella Constantinou at 20:15 where visitors can participate in curated table tennis matches where notions of power relations are questioned and redefined. The evening will conclude with SOLSTICE, a live techno performance by sound artist Ana Gutieszca at 21:00 where visitors will tune in to minimal, brutal and energizing rhythmic superpositions.
On Monday 6th October, the exhibition runs from 12:00 to 21:30 and includes a guided tour in English at 14:00 by the curator of Noise Traffic, Nicolina Stylianou. At 15:00 Rafaella Constantinou’s participatory performance Kräftegleichgewicht | Balance of Power continues with pre-registration followed by the artist’s talk on Politics on Play at 17:00. At 17:45, the cultural producer Claudia Konyalian will draw threads from her heritage, her own migratory experiences and her work with refugees in Cyprus to discuss with visitors How to Create [for] Change and expand the space for refugee integration through cultural production. The afternoon continues with the co-founder & co-editor of NO NIIN Magazine Elham Rahmati with a talk on Pluralist Narratives of Internationalist Art and Culture at 18:30. Rahmati, will discuss how an internationalist editorial approach actively builds bridges across diverse cultural landscapes and amplifies voices that might otherwise remain peripheral in mainstream discourse. The afternoon continues with the second film screening of Efi Savvides’ film Camp Pournara (2023 /Cyprus) at 19:00 and concludes with Elsewhere, a live concert by sound artist duo ALOES at 20:00 where water dripping, soft humming, synths buzzing and a hint of clarinet will take the space to create rhythmic audiovisual soundscapes and atmospheres from elsewhere.
On Tuesday 7th October, the exhibition runs from 13:00-21:30. At 14:00 women’s rights advocate Maryam Dahir Ilmi will run a workshop on how to make Somali Halwa, a traditional sweet made for weddings and moments of coming together to celebrate and share moments. During the workshop Dahir Ilmi will discuss with participants how Somali women carry the tradition forward and how it has become a symbol of community and women’s resilience and strength. The participation to the workshop is free but it requires pre-registration. At 19:00 Cello Fest visits Noise Traffic with UTU, an one-hour live concert of ambient sounds, cello and electronics by the newly formed duo SUMU.
On Wednesday 8th October, the exhibition runs from 10:00-15:00. Between 10:30 to 13:00 visitors can pre-register to participate in Rafaella Constantinou’s participatory performance Kräftegleichgewicht | Balance of Power.
Between Sunday 5th to Wednesday 8th October 2025 visitors are able to visit the artworks on display which include the film Screen Recording 2020-11-20 at 1.59.44 PM by the filmmaker Argyro Nicolaou where she and her mother reflect on her mother’s experience of returning to her childhood home as a tourist, 46 years after she was forced to flee. Nicolaou’s work is accompanied by Strap sandals, an artwork by Efi Savvides where it archives the traces of life and memory of refugee children from Iraq, Sudan, and Ethiopia who were stranded for years in Richmond Village located in the British Sovereign Base of Dhekelia in Cyprus. The exhibition includes photographs of REUTERS / Yiannis Kourtoglou capturing the case of 159 asylum seekers who were stranded inside the buffer zone for seven months under increasingly terrible weather conditions, and Nicolina Stylianou’s photos taken during an escort at the buffer zone in Cyprus guided by the UNFICYP soldiers.
Alongside the exhibition, visitors will also find NO NIIN Magazine (issues 1–4), publications including A Territory Without Terrain by Efi Savvides (edited by Marina Christodoulidou), Fantasy Football Magazine, records by Infra Record Label, Noise Traffic merchandise, and pre-orders for Savvides’ publication Paranomi Paramoni (Illegal Stay).