Dr Gabriel Koureas
How can divided Nicosia, scarred by wars and ethnic conflicts that have left open wounds in the fabric of the city, try to heal itself and incorporate its traumatic memories within its spatial organization? Is such an incorporation possible? In order to investigate these questions, this paper is going to examine in more detail the visual and sensorial language of the city of Nicosia concentrating on issues of space, borders (both physical and psychic), memory and trauma. The paper interrogates artistic intersections in the spatial and psychic parameters of the city in order to argue that artistic production in the city of Nicosia is embedded in its spatiality. Like the space of the city these works demand our participation, our interaction through all our senses. In experiencing both these works and the city we are unable to rely solely on vision, as they call for our hearing, smell and tactility in comprehending spatially and artistically the impact of war and conflict. It is only by understanding the sensorial impact of trauma that we can begin to comprehend the political and social conditions in the city of Nicosia and its artistic production.
Green Line Scapes. Nicosia's Dead Zone as a River of Memory.
Dr. Anna Grichting
The interstitial spaces of conflict in urban zones - such as the Green Line in Nicosia and the Berlin Wall - offer opportunities to reweave coherent relationships between disrupted networks, fabrics, ecologies and societies and to intervene with imaginative and far-sighted projects that are compatible with what the architect Giancarlo De Carlo names the genus loci - the genetic code or spirit of the place. The reconstructions of Berlin after the fall of Wall sought, for the most part, to conceal the signs of its tragic history and to fill in the gaps created by the division, as the economic forces of real estate swept into the liberated No-Man's land. 20 years after the reunification of the city, some inhabitants feel that the Wall was dismantled too quickly and without vision, swallowing up a portion of the city's history. How can we learn from Berlin? Through a strategic exploration of the landscapes of the Green Line we can seek ways to reweave the distant and recent past into the future urban landscape and reveal the palimpsests of the Green Line rather than negate the recent past. This excavation produces an archeology of the conflict (Quim Rossell) that lays the foundations for a future Landscape of Memory through a collaborative research and design process which involves civil society on both sides and which participates in the reconciliation and healing of the territorial and social wounds. The GreenLineScapes Laboratory explores the ecological and cultural opportunities that can emerge in the liminal landscapes of the Green Line. We will investigate some of the possible urban, architectural and artistic uses of the Green Line of Nicosia, and examine how it could become a beautiful scar, as well as a space that provides a new reading of the walled city of Nicosia and its process of depolarization.
Dr. Anna Grichting
The interstitial spaces of conflict in urban zones - such as the Green Line in Nicosia and the Berlin Wall - offer opportunities to reweave coherent relationships between disrupted networks, fabrics, ecologies and societies and to intervene with imaginative and far-sighted projects that are compatible with what the architect Giancarlo De Carlo names the genus loci - the genetic code or spirit of the place. The reconstructions of Berlin after the fall of Wall sought, for the most part, to conceal the signs of its tragic history and to fill in the gaps created by the division, as the economic forces of real estate swept into the liberated No-Man's land. 20 years after the reunification of the city, some inhabitants feel that the Wall was dismantled too quickly and without vision, swallowing up a portion of the city's history. How can we learn from Berlin? Through a strategic exploration of the landscapes of the Green Line we can seek ways to reweave the distant and recent past into the future urban landscape and reveal the palimpsests of the Green Line rather than negate the recent past. This excavation produces an archeology of the conflict (Quim Rossell) that lays the foundations for a future Landscape of Memory through a collaborative research and design process which involves civil society on both sides and which participates in the reconciliation and healing of the territorial and social wounds. The GreenLineScapes Laboratory explores the ecological and cultural opportunities that can emerge in the liminal landscapes of the Green Line. We will investigate some of the possible urban, architectural and artistic uses of the Green Line of Nicosia, and examine how it could become a beautiful scar, as well as a space that provides a new reading of the walled city of Nicosia and its process of depolarization.
Public Art and Social Engangement in Contemporary Art
Dr Cameron Cartiere
Dr. Cartiere will present a number of public art projects from around the world that focus specifically on social engagement and border issues including works by Judy Baca, Lucy Orta and Alfredo Jaar.
Cameron Cartiere is co-director of the Centre for Media, Culture and Creative Practice at Birkbeck, University of London (www.bbk.ac.uk/creative). Dr. Cartiere is a senior lecturer for the Arts Policy and Management MA programme at Birkbeck and specialises in public art, urban renewal, sculpture parks, cultural heritage and curatorial practice. She is co-editor of The Practice of Public Art (Routledge, 2008), co-author of the Manifesto of Possibilities: Commissioning Public Art in the Urban Environment (www.manifestoofpossibilities.co.uk) and author of the online resource, The International Directory of Sculpture Parks & Gardens (www.bbk.ac.uk/sculptureparks).
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