Filenews 10 March 2023 - by Dora Christodoulou
On the occasion of the reports and complaints of people of the arts in the days of the theft and destruction of the bronze statue from a public place in Paphos, the delay in the institutionalization of a cultural institution that will now act as the natural continuation of Pafos 2017, returns to the fore.
Five years after the most important moments of its modern history, its function as the European Capital of Culture, and while in the meantime nothing reminds of those days of cultural uplift, the city of Pafos seems unable to attempt the next step to recapture the thread of culture from where "Paphos 2017" left it, emphasize in their interventions artists and other people of culture.
And this, while it was expected that after the meeting of the Pafos Municipal Council of 24 June 2021 that dealt with the issue, it would be only a matter of time before the first Board of Directors of the Paphos Cultural Foundation under establishment would be appointed. The Pafos Municipal Council, however, failed to complete the examination of the issue and take decisions, since part of it, citing the special circumstances of the pandemic, succeeded in postponing the discussion and decision-making on the appointment of the members of the new body.
Now, although we are now in the middle of 2023, things remain the same. No development has occurred in the intervening period, the issue is not part of any meeting agenda and the members of the City Council themselves express ignorance about what is to come with the issue, as well as the reasons for the delay. Lately, on the contrary, there have been increasing assessments and whispers within the Municipal Palace that the issue has been informally abandoned and that the chances of universal agreement on the practical issues of the operation of the institution are negligible.
And all this, while the rapid deterioration of cultural affairs in Paphos, with the end of Pafos 2017, is universally acknowledged. The pressure from all sides to finally take practical measures to restore cultural flourishing in the city through the Pafos Cultural Foundation is currently proving to be a dead end.
