How do we conceive the place(s) we live? Do we remember the routs we take, the journeys we plan or the paths that lead us? Do we remember the stories we have heard, the people we met or the strangers we passed by? Do we remember the things we have tasted, the echoing sounds or nature’s silence? Do we remember the streets we pass by or the buildings that shade the road? Or do we take these paths for granted knowing we will follow them again tomorrow?

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After the Turkish military’s invasion of the northern part of Cyprus in 1974, resulting to the de facto division of the island in two separate parts, Famagusta became a ‘divided’ city, with Varosha being, until recently, a closed-off area also known as the ‘ghost city’. Since then, the city of Famagusta was transformed from a lively centre of commerce and a space of significant cultural exchange and tourism, to a place of geographical and social division, violent conflict, and meanwhile, Varosha became an object of trade in attempts to resolve the conflict. As a result, a large number of refugees fled, and eventually forced to settle in other cities of the island or even abroad. While not being able to roam the streets of their city again, the memories of Famagusta were dislocated with them, as they are trying to hold onto and preserve any fragments of this identity left.

 

This exhibition presents a series of ‘mind maps’, created, collected and analysed during the thesis project titled: The Mnemonic Spatial Dimensions of an Abandoned Border City: The Case Study of Famagusta, as part of a Master’s Degree in Architecture and Urban Design. The thesis is specifically exploring the way refugees of Famagusta are able to ‘map out’ the city based on personal and collective memory, after fourty-nine years of absence from their hometown. As part of this extensive research, refugees of ages fifty-five to eighty were interviewed and asked to draw their own map, visualising their memory and experiences of space and place, and the emotions associated with it. These ‘inner landscapes of the mind’ were then analysed to draw conclusions in relation to how cities and places are interpreted through a personalised framework, affected by a person’s political and social background, personal recollection and trauma.

 

This exhibition aims to reveal these subjective identities and narratives that are rooted within physical spaces, and take them out of private remembrance and into a public sphere of collective memory, initiating new strands of discussions on a much exploited topic. This body of research also intends to create an archive of memories and accounts on the geographical nature of the city of Famagusta, through stories provided by the last generation of refugees who were either born in, lived or worked in the city. The hand-drawn maps are an embodiments if this fleeing memory, in an attempt to preserve the information and personal narrative, and eventually be passed on to future generations, who can only imagine what it would be like roaming the streets of the city of Famagusta.

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