SOPAZ (The Cooperative Food Production Organisation) in Nicosia, Cyprus
How does it feel when one walks in an abandoned complex of buildings that used to provide so much in the local economy and agriculture? How a building that was built by one the most prominent figures of the Cypriot Modernism Architecture, architect Stavros Economou, is left unattended to rot and become a health and safety hazard site? The SOPAZ (The Cooperative Food Production Organisation) was established in 1961 and was producing compound animal feed. It was permanently closed down in 2015 when a fire broke at the power distribution panel. For the last nearly 5 years, the SOPAZ buildings complex plus a fair piece of land, belongs to the Nicosia Municipality. Till now, nothing has been officially announced regarding the future of the complex or the area in general. Thoughts on converting it to an academic facility or an artist’s community have been heard but nothing is certain yet.
Once it was vibrant. Today it is a lifeless complex of buildings that only houses pigeons, mice, lizards and remains of a truly productive past. These pictures were created when I was invited by the curatorial team of the first retrospective exhibition "Past-forward: Stavros Economou Unarchived" at "SPEL," the State Gallery of Contemporary Art, Nicosia to contribute a series of photographs. Also, the photos were projected when the exhibition was moved at Le Corbusier’s Unité d’habitation in Marseille, France. Stavros Economou is of the founding fathers of Cyprus Modernism Architecture
