An international open-air art and design experience transforming the ancient streets of Nicosia into a living, breathing museum.
Idea and Directed by Sveva Manfredi Zavaglia.

«Art & Design is a bridge suspended between past and future: it vibrates in space, breathes in places, inhabits life.»
Echoing the vision of the great masters who imagined art as an inseparable dimension of the city, N26 Art Vibes in Nicosia aspires to create an Open-Air Museum — alive, permeable, and radically accessible — where beauty ceases to be a privilege and becomes an everyday experience woven into the fabric of urban life.
Nicosia thus becomes an international diffused museum: every artwork a point of view, every path an active narrative, every glance an act of care towards a city in the process of renewing itself. Art does not descend upon the city from above — it emerges from within it, from its stones, its silences, and its enduring memory.

N26 Art Vibes wishes to give Nicosia something rare and irreplaceable: a living organism, an experimental laboratory where art is not merely exhibited but becomes part of the city's very breath. It does not arrive as a guest — it takes root, it grows, it pulses.
Art returns to the streets, to the parks, among the walls that guard centuries of Mediterranean history and memory. Here, sculpture is renewed as a public gesture — a meeting place, a bridge between generations, cultures, and ways of seeing. Works that do not separate themselves from their surroundings but enter into deep and tender conversation with them.
For one transformative week, Nicosia becomes the cultural capital of Cyprus — a city that regenerates with new force, embracing beauty as a concrete and radical form of rebirth.
Four interconnected pillars animate N26 Art Vibes, each one a distinct dimension of the experience — together forming a constellation of beauty, thought, sound, and dialogue.
An international exhibition of outdoor and indoor Art & Design, transforming Nicosia's public spaces into a living gallery without walls.
A prestigious competition dedicated to students of the Academy of Fine Arts, nurturing the next generation of Cypriot and international creative talent.
Live music and multidisciplinary artistic performances woven into the city's squares, parks, and historic streets — sound as sculpture.
Open dialogues on beauty, urban regeneration, and rebirth — gathering artists, scholars, curators, and citizens around shared questions of culture and place.

Sculptures, design objects, and installations emerge from the Mediterranean landscape in constant dialogue with history and light — with the air that passes through and shapes the works, and with the stone that has held the city's story for centuries. Nicosia breathes new beauty: art vibrates in its ancient stones, in its urban nature, in the quiet strength of the community that renews itself.
The city does not merely host art — it becomes art. International artists reinterpret symbolic places through site-specific works: light, permeable, and alive — capable of welcoming the breeze, reflecting the sky, and mirroring the life that pulses in the squares, parks, and labyrinthine streets of the city centre. Each form is a conversation; each reflection, a recognition.
Four foundational themes shape the artistic and curatorial vision of N26 Art Vibes — a framework born of listening deeply to the character, wounds, and aspirations of Nicosia itself.
The works tell of a rediscovered balance: wounds transformed into light, into constructive and forward-looking energy. Art as testimony of resilience — matter that remembers, and in remembering, renews.
Artists reinterpret the layered identity of Nicosia without overpowering it. Each work breathes with and for the places it inhabits — an echo, not an imposition.
Air becomes the protagonist. Wind generates movement; light generates narrative. The urban landscape itself becomes guardian and co-author of every artwork placed within it.
Citizens — and especially young people — are called upon to become guides, narrators, and ambassadors of their city: not passive spectators but active protagonists of a living cultural experience.

N26 Art Vibes stems from the conviction that art can be a living force of transformation — not an isolated object behind glass, but a gesture that shapes relationships, perceptions, and shared identities. Nicosia becomes both a symbol of Mediterranean resilience and a stage for a new and necessary urban imagination.
Matter becomes testimony. Wounds transform into light, and the past becomes the seed of the possible.
Each artwork is an echo of the city — it respects it, observes it, and gently reinterprets it for a new era.
Air and sky sculpt breathing forms: sculptures allow light and wind to pass through them, becoming part of the atmosphere itself.
Citizens and young people become actors and guardians of beauty — co-creators of a shared cultural legacy.
Sculptors and artists from Italy, Europe, Asia, and the Americas bring a plurality of visions and a universality of values — lightness, breath, nature, light, balance, community. Each work is a reflection of the city as it renews itself; every form, a sign oriented towards the future.
N26 Art Vibes creates itineraries of discovery, transforming cultural enjoyment into lived experience: the visitor becomes a traveller, an explorer, a witness to something quietly extraordinary unfolding in real time and real space.




Public art is not ornament — it is infrastructure for the soul. N26 Art Vibes positions artistic experience as a driving force for urban regeneration, sustainable tourism aligned with the UN Agenda 2030, aesthetic education, and the cultivation of active, empowered citizenship.
Sustainable, responsible tourism and cultural development woven into a global framework for a better world.
Art for all — open to every visitor, resident, and passerby. No walls, no barriers, no exclusions.

«Art is what the air lifts and the light reveals.»
Air is the conceptual and material thread running through the entire project. A vital element, a principle of movement, a symbol of freedom — air is what gives the works their life and their meaning. The artworks do not impose themselves upon the place: they integrate with it, celebrate it, and allow themselves to be shaped by its invisible currents.
Recycled materials, sustainable techniques, and responsible production form the ethical backbone of every work. Respect for the environment, the enhancement of reuse, and memory transformed into rebirth: nothing is lost, everything is regenerated.
Wind moves through the sculptures; light filters through them; the Mediterranean breeze animates them. Each work is a living instrument, tuned to the rhythms of its place and season.

A plurality of languages and cultures converge in a single creative vibration. The involvement of artists from Argentina, India, Japan, and the United States reinforces Nicosia's role as an international cultural crossroads — a city where the Mediterranean opens outward to receive the world's most vital artistic voices.


Four visionary artists — each rooted in their own geography and tradition, each reaching far beyond it — bring the world to Nicosia and Nicosia to the world.
Works connecting biographical memory and natural heritage. Using recovered plastics and natural resins, Bullrich crafts forms that speak of loss, transformation, and the enduring vitality of the material world.
Artist and cultural activist, founder of global public art social projects. Chiluveru's practice places community at the center of every gesture, making participation the primary medium of artistic expression.
Works on the lightness of matter, blending traditional Japanese craftsmanship with contemporary installation practice. Yokoyama's pieces seem to defy gravity — suspended between heritage and the present moment.
A leading figure in the exploration between the real and the virtual, with techno-digital works present in global museums and cultural institutions. Marsiglia dissolves the boundary between matter and light.

A competition conceived for students of the Cyprus School and University of Art and Design, open to all courses and years of study. The AN26 Award is not merely a prize — it is an invitation to belong, to contribute, and to be seen. It aims to promote the growth of young local talents, foster concrete professional experience, and celebrate the new generation of artists who will carry beauty forward.
Students submit works consistent with the curatorial themes: memory, dialogue, landscape, and community. Each proposal is a creative response to the living city.
A distinguished committee of curators, lecturers, and cultural institutions reviews all submissions and selects three finalists for recognition and exhibition.
The winning work is fully realized and integrated into the exhibition pathway — and published in the official catalogue, ensuring lasting visibility and documentation.

Music is not accompaniment — it is a permanent artistic partner. Its presence expands the experience beyond the sculptural dimension, bringing sound, body, and gesture into the city's public spaces. The performance becomes a collective breath, a bridge between audience and places of memory — an art form that, like sculpture itself, inhabits space and transforms it.
Site-specific musical performances created in direct response to each installation location — sound shaped by place, and place shaped by sound.
Collaborations with international dancers and performers transform the city's squares and historic sites into stages for immersive, multidisciplinary experience.
Bespoke soundscapes composed and dedicated to each individual artwork — an invisible yet deeply felt layer added to every visual encounter.
«Open dialogues, open visions, open city.»
N26 Art Vibes becomes a platform for thought and debate — a place where the city, its artists, its scholars, and its citizens gather to reflect on the role of art in urban regeneration and community life. The conversations are as much a part of the exhibition as the sculptures themselves.
Art as a tool for resilience — a dialogue between history and future, between wound and healing.
The widespread museum as an educational platform: how art rooted in place becomes a vehicle for collective knowledge.
Art, air, light, and sustainability — the intersection of ecological consciousness and creative practice.
Active participation and new generations as cultural ambassadors: how young people reclaim and reinvent their own heritage.
Responsible tourism and the UN 2030 Agenda — the economic and social dividend of beauty placed at the center of urban life.
A layered, phased communication strategy ensures that N26 Art Vibes resonates across local, national, and international audiences — before, during, and long after the event itself.
1 months prior
During the exhibition
Legacy and continuation

A rich and diversified ecosystem of channels ensures that the message of N26 Art Vibes travels as freely and as far as the artworks themselves — across screens, airwaves, streets, and conversations.
The investment in N26 Art Vibes is an investment in the cultural and economic future of Nicosia — structured across three principal areas of expenditure to ensure artistic excellence, broad visibility, and an unforgettable lived experience.
N26 Art Vibes is brought to life by a dedicated team of curators, advisors, legal experts, and cultural producers — each one committed to transforming a vision of beauty into a reality that the city of Nicosia will carry with it for years to come.
Idea and Direction Manager
The creative and strategic driving force behind the entire project — responsible for curatorial vision, artist relations, and overall direction.
Art Advisor & Manager
Press and Communications Office — Cyprus
Art advisory, on-the-ground management, and the full coordination of media, artist relations and public exhibition in Cyprus.
Music experience & Performance
Responsible for the musical and performative dimension of the project — from live sound sets to cross-disciplinary collaborations with international artists.
Legal
Legal counsel and contractual support across all partnerships, agreements, and institutional collaborations.