Sidestreets Culture
The only politically independent arts and culture organization in North Cyprus, Sidestreets (www.sidestreets.org) was cofounded by Anber Onar and Johann Pillai in 2007 as a set of arts, educational, and cultural initiatives. Its headquarters and main venue was the Onar İş Hanı, a five-story building in central north Nicosia—the site of a controversial 2005 art installation by Anber Onar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKS05P1G3Wk&t=12s), and a chosen venue for the art biennial Manifesta 6 that was cancelled for political reasons.
Sidestreets was conceptualized around this charged site close to two border crossings, with a vision of the arts, language, cultural dynamism, and critical thinking as the main natural and renewable resources of civil society; and with the conviction that development in these areas contributes significantly to developing and sustaining shared values, respect for diversity, peaceful co-existence, and social and economic growth. Its aim is to serve as a catalyst for the production of work accessible to the public and for the public good; for recognizing and preserving both tangible and intangible cultural heritage, for creating a multilingual, pluralistic environment, embracing people from all areas of society; and for critical engagement and debate at all levels, tempered by respect for individual and cultural values.
During 2007-14, Sidestreets created, organized, and hosted some 50 seminars, lectures, roundtables, readings and workshops on topics from semiotics and art to human rights; 30 art exhibitions and performance art events by Cypriot and international artists; 30 film series and film-related events, with subjects varying from documentaries on social issues to classic features to dada short films and animations; 19 off-site seminars on modern art and literature in Kyrenia and Nicosia, 260 Saturday film screenings for inner-city immigrant children, as well as occasional workshops for them on health, rights, diversity, etc.; and 5 cultural and educational summer camps for disadvantaged high-school children, including artistic and historical presentations and cultural tours. In 2014, Sidestreets closed down its own space, and since then has continued to collaborate with different organizations as partners, on off-site exhibitions, lectures, and film screenings at different community venues, as well as working on research and publications.
Sidestreets’ activities—99% free and open to the public— are organized on participatory and grassroots levels. Their defining features are independence and commitment to foregrounding and setting a standard for artistic, cultural, and social events and concerns that transcend narrow local, political, and national agendas. This stance has enabled many of its events to be held in collaboration with embassies and diplomatic missions; universities and schools; arts, social services, rights, and environmental organizations; and local businesses—below the radar and outside of the marketing frameworks of “bicommunality” and the NGO industry in Cyprus. Sidestreets’ activities over the years have involved thousands of participants from every area and level of society, across communities and the divide in Cyprus, and exemplify how people can come together regardless of their ideological orientations, on the basis of common interests in art and culture, as well as broader human values and concerns.
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Contributor: Johann Pillai
