A lecture & conversation with visual artist and educator Efi Savvides on her project “Richmond Village”, an unauthorised settlement at the British

Time: 10–11.30 on Zoom (request link via info@taidekoulumaa.fi)

Sovereign Base Area of Dhekelia in Cyprus, home to refugees whose boat had washed ashore at the Akrotiri Sovereign Base in 1998.

Efi Savvides is a visual artist and art educator, and founder of Artstudio Laboratories, an art education hub active in Nicosia since 1985. Her practice explores mechanisms of exclusion produced by institutions of power, with a focus on the lived experiences of migrants and refugees in Cyprus. Through long-term, trust-based engagement, she works with testimonies, photography, video, and archival material to examine conditions of displacement and resilience.

Since 2013, she has developed an extensive archive documenting everyday life within temporary or restricted environments, tracing how spaces of confinement are transformed into forms of habitation. Drawing on methodologies akin to archaeological fieldwork, she records material traces - objects, structures, and spatial imprints - proposing an “archaeology of claim” that restores visibility to communities rendered temporary and unseen.

Her recent film work examines the impact of EU migration policies on Mediterranean contexts, focusing on how border regimes and reception systems reshape relationships 

between migrants and local communities.

Alongside this socially engaged practice, she has developed a more introspective body of work, Afterlight (2020–24), based on reworked family photographs. Through drawing and painting, this series explores memory, identity, and aging as an ongoing process of transformation.

Savvides works across silk-screen printing, drawing, photography, and video, and has exhibited widely in Cyprus and internationally.

Website: https://efisavvides.com/