Dr Iosif Hadjikyriakos

Director of Larnaka Archives Phivos Stavrides

Iosif Hadjikyriakos studied Fine Arts and History of Art in Venice (BSc and MSc in Fine Arts; MSc in Art History), and Social Anthropology in the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Ioannina (PhD). His research interests include the decorative arts and their social value, textile and attire in Venice and Cyprus, aesthetics and the evolution of taste in the eastern Mediterranean, the material culture in Cyprus during the Ottoman period, and 16th-century arts in Cyprus.

He has collaborated with the Fondation Marc de Mondalambert on a research programme looking at medieval oral traditions, visual artefacts and their link to the myth of Digenis Akritas along the coastal cities of the Mediterranean (Grand Prix Fondation Marc de Montalembert 2004), with the University of Padua and the Municipality of Larnaka on a research programme concerning the topographical evolution of the city of Larnaka during the medieval and post-medieval periods, with the University of Cyprus on a project regarding the material life of the Venetian subjects in Larnaka during the 18th century (Department of History and Archaeology; with Prof. E. Rizopoulou-Egoumenidou), with the Municipality of Livadia on cataloguing and studying the municipality’s local crafts, as well as on curating the local museum of cane-crafting, with the Metropolis of Konstantia-Ammochostou and the Cyprus Department of Antiquities on a study of ceramic findings from the Agia Napa Monastery excavations, and on the ecclesiastical museum of the same monastery, and with the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and the Environment on the feasibility study for the creation of a Museum of Rural Life.

He collaborates with the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Cyprus as a special teaching scientist, teaching a class on Folk Art. He also collaborates with the Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute, and is an Ambassador of the Michelangelo Foundation for Crafts and Creativity in Cyprus. Since 2015 he has been the director of the Phivos Stavrides Foundation – Larnaka Archives, which in 2022 was renamed Larnaka Archives Phivos Stavrides.

In his capacity as director of the Larnaka Archives Phivos Stavrides, he has worked with Nicoletta Demetriou on the publication of a three-volume corpus focusing on the improvised couplets (tsiattista) performed in the Festival of Kataklysmos in Larnaka between 1980 and 2019, as well as on the production of the documentary Poetic Duelling: New Tsiattista Poets in Cyprus.