Nicosia: NOW!

Notes about Nicosia/ Reality Check.

1. Nicosia is a city of two cities. A physical border seperates and connects them. However the reality of the city is not only that and is much more complicated than that. So when we focus only on the division line, we exclude the living city, its inhabitants. We assume that the identity of the city is constructed only by the history of its division. 

2. Recently a theoretical congestion is taking place over Nicosia's particular condition. Being the last European divided capital city, a number of exhibitions, workshops, lectures, competitions etc. are organized, 'celebrating' and anathematizing the border-line condition at the same time. a similar intellectual interest was exhibited during the start of 20th century. British and other travelers visited the unknown island and include in their written narratives significant information about the city and themselves.
3. The city is in transition. Especially, since the Ledra street opening property prices are rising, buildings are renovated, new shops are opening. The city is changing and is going from sleep mode to stand by mode...  
4. The city's present condition, is affected by the political negotiations and could last for years or could change in the next months. When change happens it will be fast and a total regeneration will take place.

5. Separation and lack of communication are not depended solely on the physical borders. They are now and have always been part of the way identities were conceived and constructed in every-day practices and official discourses.  

Could it be that an interesting thing to do now is to make a reality check? To document and map the current situation in detail? To step back and create a still image of the city and try to grasp not the monument-the border- but the ephemeral, the movements and the practices, the dynamic formation of identities? 

to create an archive of the present consisting of:

stories/ 

inventories/ 

mappings/ 

image records/

Workshop: Archive of the present

1. This creation could take advantage the EASA network inside the city. The participants are going to be traveling and crossing the border and will be living in the city for 10 days. 

Part of the workshop archive, could also be the individual narratives of the participants. Students should consider collecting fragments of their own experience of the border, the city and the INCM meeting, the spaces, the discussions...

[TIME: DURING THE INCM MEETING]

2. Markets spaces and exchange: Record the spaces of the two separate markets. Record stories of the sellers, map the goods inside cyprus, where they come from...

[TIME: SATURDAY-SUNDAY-MONDAY 08-09-10.11]

3. Ephemeral identities: record migrant(south) and ?(north) stories and spaces. Maps of migrant move inside the city. from the place they work to the center of the city. 

[TIME: SATURDAY-SUNDAY-MONDAY 08-09-10.11]