By Venia Pastaka

Art Historian

The exhibition by artist Toula Liasis, entitled “Where Have You Been?,” was created from a personal tragic event that transcends the limits of individual memory and touches on collective trauma. Born in Karpasia in 1957, the artist carries within her the imprint of the Cypriot tragedy of 1974, as her brother, a soldier at the time, went missing after the Turkish invasion and was found many years later in a mass grave. This tragic experience is the core around which the artist’s work is woven. The question, “Where were you?” is the phrase that was never said, the need for dialogue with those who are absent, but also the constant anxiety of waiting. Through this question, Liasis manages to transform her personal story into a collective experience, giving a voice to the other missing persons and their families.

In the exhibition, the artist uses different media (photography, installations, edited images) to create an environment where memory takes on a physical form. The 27 photographic portraits depicting moments from her childhood and youth, as well as those of her brother, take center stage. Set against brightly colored backgrounds, the black-and-white faces take on a new dimension. The use of light is symbolic, bringing the energy of memory to the fore, even when the body is absent. One of the most powerful works in the exhibition is the edited image of her brother’s skull, where, without a trace of melodrama, Liasis chooses silence as her language. She does not offer the viewer easy emotion, but invites them to face the harsh reality of loss.

The power of her work lies precisely in this balance between sensitivity and sobriety. Despite the tragic content, the artist does not allow herself to be trapped in darkness. She uses color to resist the monochrome of mourning. “Tragic does not necessarily mean black,” she seems to remind us. Thus, her works are not only monuments to loss, but also spaces of hope, fields of dialogue with the past that insists on seeking justice.

Through her work, Toula Liasis does not promise redemption, but reminds us that the question she poses so powerfully in the title of the exhibition remains open, and that the duty of memory is to keep this question alive. Her exhibition is a call to all of us not to let silence become oblivion, but to transform it into fruitful reflection on the destruction and absurdity brought about by the energy of war.