«PERAS» by Nikolas Loukas - CLOSING PARTY Nicosia International Festival 2025

What happens in the few minutes before an artist step onto the stage? And what remains on their face and body immediately after the final bow, when the performance has ended but the intensity still lingers? These unseen, transitional moments are captured in “Peras”, the photography exhibition by Nikolas Louka, presented by the International Nicosia Festival at its closing ceremony on Friday, 9 January 2026, at the Nicosia Municipal Theatre (20:00). Three months filled with theatre, music, dance, and other parallel activities come to an end in the most festive way - with a closing party featuring an on-stage DJ set, accompanying the exhibition.
 
The exhibition features individual portraits of all artists who participated in the productions of the International Nicosia Festival 2025, photographed shortly before going on stage and immediately after their final bow. In the “before,” the camera captures anticipation, focus, tension, anxiety, and each artist’s personal ritual prior to facing the audience. In the “after,” now behind the scenes, the energy of the stage has not yet subsided: joy, release, fatigue, emotion, and an alertness that has not yet faded.
 
The exhibition unfolds throughout all areas of the Nicosia Municipal Theatre -from the entrance and foyer to the stage, backstage areas, corridors, and dressing rooms. Visitors move through the very “mechanism” of the theatre, spaces that have absorbed the intensity and energy of the Festival, encountering the images exactly where they were created.
 
Peras: the title and its meaning
 
“Peras” marks the moment when something ends and something else begins. It is the boundary, the threshold, the brief moment of transition. More than a series of portraits, the exhibition forms a collective narrative.
 
On the same evening, the International Nicosia Festival 2025 also comes to an end, making Peras a shared point of reference between the conclusion of a major cultural cycle and the personal ending of each performance, as reflected in the faces of the artists. It is a unique night in which the theatre, its people, and the closing of the Festival converge into a single image.
 
Between the “before” and the “after” lies an invisible offering - something given to the stage and something that remains. This transition is what the exhibition seeks to capture through photography: the moment when an experience closes, yet continues to live on in the face, the gaze, the breath.
 
After 22:00, the theatre stage transforms into a dance floor, marking the passage from the ritual of performance to collective celebration, and the conclusion of a three-month festival dedicated to celebrating culture.
 
Who is Nikolas Louka?
 
Nikolas Louka is a visual artist working primarily with photography. He studied photography in Athens and relocated to London in 2011. His visual language is defined by a balance between the stylised and the raw, with a strong emphasis on intensity and the truth of the moment.
 
Throughout his career, he has collaborated with prominent artists in music and theatre, cultural institutions, publishing houses, and figures from the wider international creative and cultural field. In 2017, he founded E2studios in East London, through which he collaborated with international brands and publications such as British Vogue, i-D, Dazed, Prada, Sony Music, and other creative organisations. He has also created campaigns for numerous brands across Europe and the United Kingdom.
 
His work has been presented in major cultural venues. His solo exhibition “Beyond the Blur” was shown at the Cyprus High Commission in London, while “2033 Miles” was exhibited at Shoreditch High Street in London. His photographs were also part of the project “Anew” at the Venice Biennale, during the 17th International Architecture Exhibition.
 
Since returning to Cyprus in 2024, he continues to develop new projects both locally and internationally.