Evis Sammoutis Collecting. 2 12 14 Nikosia

A new project begins. Evis Sammoutis and I have just spent time exploring the streets of his home, Nikosia, on the hunt for new material. This extraordinary city is well known for its history and beauty, and of course, for the distressing division-a border of barbed wire and ruin tearing a metropolis and an island apart. But it is also remarkable for its street life, and for its workshops. Everywhere you go, there are the sounds of people working by hand; carpenters, metalworkers, furniture restorers, coffinmakers, rub shoulders with dry goods stores, coffee shops and art galleries. This series of recordings were made, just using a phone, as first step towards a work which Evis is planning, celebrating these layered textures and timbres, which has the working title, of ‘Nikoisa Concerto’.

‘bo’: Danish, ‘live’ (linked to old Norse, ‘Bua’-dwelling …. ‘bod’: Cornish, ‘Dwelling, early toponym from ‘bos’, ‘to be’. And a night practising Jeremy Dale Roberts 1 12 14

I am grateful to the people of Nikosia for their grace and good humour, as I wandered about sticking a violin in their faces!
In the carpenter’s woodstore 1

In the coffinmaker’s shop: moulds, many times reused

On the street corner

Green Line Palimpsest

In the market building

Roadblock graffiti; fossilised Nikosia 4 12 14

Outside two workshops

Scrapyard

Ruined building on the Green Line

‘Extension of Politick by other means’?. Nikosia December 2104

In the Carpenter’s Workshop 2

In the Carpenter’s workshop 3

Street Corner, Nikosia, 4 12 14

Composer Evis Sammoutis in a Nikosia Coffin-maker’s workshop. 3 12 14