In the hands of the new, more populous Paphos Municipal Council that will emerge from the June elections, the hot potato regarding the Paphos Cultural Foundation, which has been delayed for three years, is being transferred.
For quite some time now, the issue has essentially ceased to be on the agenda of the municipal authority, but recent statements by the Mayor of Paphos clarified that the lack of progress on the matter by the current Municipal Council is final.
He attributed this to the parties’ efforts to divide positions instead of seeking to staff the new entity with culture-minded individuals who are truly knowledgeable about the subject.
The new Municipal Council that will emerge from the June 9th elections, emphasized Phaedonas Phaedonos, hopefully will have a more proper perspective on the matter in order to implement the plan.
Based on the initial decisions, the Paphos Cultural Foundation would have resumed the cultural thread from where “Paphos 2017” left off.
Everything seemed to be on track after the session of the Paphos Municipal Council on June 24, 2021, which dealt with the issue and was simply expected to appoint the first Administrative Board of the proposed Paphos Cultural Foundation.
However, the Paphos Municipal Council failed to complete the examination of the matter and make decisions, as a segment of it cited the unique circumstances of the pandemic, resulting in the postponement of the discussion and decision-making regarding the appointment of members of the new entity.
Now, in 2024, the rapid deterioration of cultural matters in Paphos since the end of Paphos 2017 is widely acknowledged. Pressure from all sides to finally take concrete measures to restore cultural prosperity to the city through the Paphos Cultural Foundation currently appears to be in vain.
Instead, there were new allegations last week of the loss of artworks by artists placed in the city as part of the Cultural Capital initiative, contributing to further deterioration of the situation.
Specifically, the Cultural Movement ex-Artis, in a letter to the Municipality of Paphos, accuses the municipal authority of irresponsibility, claiming that artworks are currently being ignored with the visible risk that they may have already been destroyed.
The cultural movement, one of the most active components of the Organization for the Cultural Capital of Europe Paphos 2017, argues that the Municipality itself acknowledges that it has not identified sculptures that were moved for redevelopment works, attributing this to a lack of care for the safety of these artworks.
Ex-Artis specifies the allegations, mentioning three sculptures that are now missing. These include two works by Rinos Stefani, “The Saw” and “The Dancer,” as well as the work “Forêt Sacrée” by Herman Pitts, created in connection with Paphos’ status as the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2017 and placed in points of cultural and archaeological interest with the approval of the Department of Antiquities and other relevant authorities.
Now, it claims, these works are missing, and it calls on the Municipality of Paphos to locate them and reposition them in the locations chosen by their curators and creators.
