Politics of Resistance and Identity Struggles: Street Artworks by Twenty Three

I’ve been active in the street art scene for 8 years now and I intentionally chose public space to expose my work because it belongs at the same time to all of us and to none of us. In the public scene the street dynamics affect the outcome, as your audience is not necessarily related to art and the visual impact is different.  Growing up in a conflicted zone like Cyprus I realized that there is not an adequate public dialogue about the identity issues of Cypriots and I began using street art to open up a space for dialogue about hidden issues such as racism, nationalism, and colonialism. I began through the years to develop an understanding about the necessity of the co-existence of the populations of the island, a view that remains a minority at the local level. I believe that one part of my work is socially situated/ participatory art but I don’t consider myself strictly speaking as an activist. Working in the public space I came to realize that street art has a temporality and gives an ephemeral dimension to my work, as it could be vandalized or just destroyed from various conditions.

I have also been focusing on politics of resistance and identity struggles beyond Cyprus with indigenous communities in Mexico and an ethnic Greek community in Southern Italy.  In Cyprus, I think that art is an appropriate tool to deconstruct the indoctrination that is passed on to the youth through our schooling and the compulsory army service in both communities. Art is able to construct a mutual trust and understanding between the two communities.

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Twenty three
Visual artist from Cyprus who has been active in the streets from 2012, expressing a keen interest in urban culture, his critique is firmly and wittingly expressed through a series of powerful works, that are composed of appropriations and juxtapositions of iconic images, symbols, and problematic representations. By mastering wheat paste and stencil techniques, Twenty three creates a visual language connected with the urban context while disrupting dominant narratives. His artworks – mostly made of stencil or wheat paste – can be found in Nicosia, Madrid, La Coruna, Brighton, Rome, Palermo, Mexico City, Oaxaca, Chiapas. An integral element of his work is the posing of questions, in relation to Cypriot identity and negotiating the relationship with social structures, history, and tradition. Twenty three has a strong focus on the politics of resistance in a postmodern environment around the globe. For more information: https://twentythree.com.cy/