Stelios Kallinikou
In his work, Cypriot artist Stelios Kallinikou (b. 1985, Cyprus) explores the Akrotiri peninsula in southern Cyprus. He has spent over a decade photographing and filming this region where ecological diversity and military use are intertwined. Akrotiri is a Sovereign Base Area, a region that remained a British overseas territory even after Cyprus gained its independence in 1960. The Royal Air Force still maintains an air force base there. Akrotiri is also where the island’s largest natural inland lake is located. The Akrotiri Salt Lake is a major wetland and stopping place for migratory birds.
Kallinikou’s photographs contain contradictions not immediately obvious. Flamingos linger in the salt lake while on its shore, antennas and radar systems soar into the air. Birds, insects, rock formations, and bodies of water intersect with military infrastructure, fences, and air traffic. Rather than being presented as a set of buildings, the British military base is shown to define how Akrotiri may be viewed, entered, and understood. These visible elements point up all that military secrecy conceals.
This exhibition brings together photographs, films, and sculptural assemblages to explore Akrotiri as a landscape that has been turned into a territory. Kallinikou traces a path from the harbor at Limassol via the salt lake to the cliffs of Aetokremnos—one of Cyprus’s most important archaeological sites. Thus, his work brings together contemporary geopolitical questions, geological periods, and questions of migration, belonging, and extinction against the backdrop of an island whose territorial boundaries have remained undefined since Turkish occupation of its northern part began in 1974.
Cliffs Among Dreams draws out these connections without reducing them to a linear narrative. Kallinikou approaches the land not as a silent surface onto which borders may be drawn or types of land use established, but rather as a conduit for stories and conflicts. Even as the ecosystem remains inextricably shaped to political systems, it also commands the place and shapes it in a way that resists territorial logic.
The work will be presented for the first time at C/O Berlin as part of the After Nature . Ulrike Crespo Photography Prize 26, in a joint exhibition with Susanne Kriemann . Im Fieber der Sonne flattern Schmetterlinge im Bauch. Curated by Katharina Täschner. A corresponding publication will be released by Hartmann Books for each exhibition.
Stelios Kallinikou (b. 1985, Cyprus) works with photography, video, and sound. His practice explores how political and ideological forces shape ideas of territory, landscape, and the body, engaging with themes of colonialism, ecology, technology, spirituality, and the power of images. He has exhibited internationally at institutions including de Appel, Amsterdam; Kunsthalle Baden-Baden; the Ural Industrial Biennial; Foam, Amsterdam; NiMAC, Nicosia; and the Benaki Museum, Athens. From 2018 to 2019, he was a resident at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin and received the Foam Talent Award in 2019. He is also a co-founder of Thkio Ppalies Project Space in Nicosia.
The After Nature . Ulrike Crespo Photography Prize is a joint project of the C/O Berlin Foundation and the Crespo Foundation. Every year, the prize enables the realization of two research-intensive projects and honors artists or groups with advanced exhibition and publication practices who explore new concepts of nature in photography and visual media through their work. The prize carries a cash award of 40,000 euros for each winner as well as an exhibition at C/O Berlin with an accompanying publication. After its first stop at C/O Berlin, the double exhibition will be on view from Feb 26 to May 23, 2027, at the Open Space of the Crespo Foundation in Frankfurt am Main.
