In his work, the Cypriot artist Stelios Kallinikou (*1985, Cyprus) engages with the Akrotiri peninsula in the south of Cyprus. For more than a decade he has photographed and filmed an area where ecological diversity and military use are closely intertwined. Akrotiri is a so-called Sovereign Base Area, a territory that Great Britain retained under its own sovereignty even after Cyprus gained independence in 1960. To this day, the Royal Air Force operates an air base there. At the same time, the Akrotiri Salt Lake, the island's largest natural inland body of water, is located here, an important wetland and resting place for migratory birds.
Kallinikou's photographs show contradictions that are not recognizable at first glance. Flamingos rest in the salt lake, while antennas and radar installations rise into the sky on the shore. Birds, insects, rock formations