Detail sketch of feet of saint, inside the Church of Apostles Petros and Pavlos in Fikardou, Cyprus.
Sketch of Church of Agia Varvara
Sketch of Sainted priest, unknown name – inspired by Jonathan Owen’s Eraser Drawings
– – – – – Fikardou is an old medieval settlement in the mountains of Cyprus, a village with over the course the last century has experience movement, abandonment, and conflict due to the geopolitical situation of the country, for example, the Turkish invasion of 1974, which divided the bi-communal habitants, and ousted the Turkish-cypriot members of the village to the north of Cyprus.
Like many small villages in Cyprus, the state of the housing and the population is reliant on the inheritors of the land, most of which have moved to larger cities, or away from Cyprus all together.
However, in all these villages, the church remains intact, active, and in good condition. The ruins and in turn, the remaining fixtures of these villages is the focus for my observations.
What the observations in Fikardou made me think of:
The city of Ani, also known as the City of a 1000 churches, is a medieval Armenian city in ruins, in modern day Kars, Turkey. The landscape is desolate, nothing but natural expanse, fields, mountains and rivers. Nothing remains of the medieval city except for the thousands of churches dotted across the landscape, half erect, dilapidated, nearing ruin, but standing after thousands of years and enduring the test of time.
Stream of consciousness – What will be left at the end of days? The apocalypse is a longstanding religious notion, we cannot help but to give the end of the world a biblical significance. What then of the houses of God? Armenian churches in Nogorno Kharabach, Kars, Western Turkey, that have remained and will continue to remain. What will remain at the end of days?
