My thirty-one days secondment started on the 11th August 2024 in Nicosia, Cyprus. Nicosia is a city divided into pieces, with north, south, and the buffer zone being the dominant ones. I began my journey from Ledra Street’s crossing [check] point to immerse my body, for the first time, into the complexities of the buffer zone or as it is also called, a no-man’s land. Soon I realised that it is not technically a no-man’s land as such, since the so-called peacekeepers (UN soldiers)—who are the representatives of those in charge of the production of this highly politicised space—are allowed to walk through the abandoned space.
Practicing my walking methodologies, the social engagement with the city did not quite go as planned since my body had to wrestle with two visceral barriers: a) streets empty from people as the summer holiday in Cyprus begins on 12th August which lasts at least for one week, and b) the suffocating heat of 39-40 degrees that pushes the remaining limited number of people inside. Lacking spontaneous social interaction with other bodies of walkers, I instead used a multisensory interaction between the auditory, visual, and thermal dimensions of the city to connect to the thresholds: the city’s edges, boundaries and limits.
Two imposing lines shape one’s spatial consciousness in Nicosia, with five conspicuous flags (Republic of Cyprus, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, and the United Nations), and with all the ruins, flora and fauna and militarised bodies in between. The lines, identifiable by walls, barricades, sandbags, fences and closed doors, symbolise the political power dynamics over division or a will to remain separated and divided. Separation turns into connection only through two checkpoints in Nicosia where some pedestrians can pass the edge by showing their documents such as ID, proof of marriage, visa and so forth. There is, of course, a kind of tension bounded within this dual process of connection and separation: the desire to connect and to border at the same time.
In his famous essay “Bridge and Door” (1994), German sociologist and philosopher George Simmel, discusses the correlation of separateness and unity through the bridge and the door. He indicates how the bridge accomplishes the connection between what is separated (for instance, we must first conceive the existence of two riverbanks as something separated in order to connect them by means of a bridge), and door represents in a more decisive manner how separating and connecting are only two sides of precisely the same act. The human being cut a portion out of the continuity and infinity of space and arranged this into a particular unity by means of a door. The door forms a linkage between the space of human beings and everything that remains outside it and transcends the separation between the inner and the outer.
Walking in Nicosia, I realised the door for politicians, creates a disciplinary force to control the threshold and to manage the act of bordering between the different sides. This is perhaps one of the reasons that in my first crossing from south to north, I was asked whether I have planned to stay in the “occupied” Cyprus. Or when coming back from north to south, I was questioned whether I am married to a “Cypriot Man” from the South. Nevertheless, the forceful and top-down system of control always produce counter social dynamics that tend to negotiate or negate the disciplinary measurements beyond the political control. Nicosia is no exception and people from both sides stamp their marks on these edges by adding different layers, taken from graffiti, or writing political messages of unity and connections, or organising creative methods in occupying the space in-between or creating forums for dialogue within and beyond the buffer zone.
One of the places that officially negotiates the top-down political will in remaining separated is Home for Cooperation in Nicosia wherein I was seconded to work during my stay in Cyprus. Home for Cooperation is located in-between the two checkpoints of Ledra Palace Gates with a short walk from one gate to another. Sitting in the Home café, one can observe that there are only two directions to walk in this piece of land; it is either from south to north, or from north to south. It is worth noting that dozens of refugees reside (in limbo) within the buffer zone since they have already managed to cross one edge but never been able to cross the other. For those who can cross the two separating/connecting points, the buffer zone turns into a bridge, connecting them to the other side.
Walking at the edges of the buffer zone from both sides of Nicosia, getting engaged to the soundscape of the city with the sound of cicadas from within the buffer zone dominating the sonic space, sitting at the doorsteps of the abandoned buildings with locked doors to get away from the scorching sun rays, crossing the checkpoints multiple times during the day to understand the politics of space, and spending time at Home for Cooperation to observe the two directions of bodies moving in space inspired me to think about how connections are made where separations exist, and how separation is created where connections exist. This therefore turned into the theme of a workshop entitled “Bridge and Door”, which I conducted at the Home for Cooperation. I invited the people of Nicosia to represent their perceptions of connection and separation through an object or telling a story. I decided to distribute, and hand out the workshop flyers physically while walking in the city, speaking to passers-by, engaging in conversation with shop owners, or putting up the posters in public spaces of the city. I felt the first place to put up the posters could be inside the buffer zone, within the ‘no-man’s land’, in between two passport control offices of the south and the north. I kind of let the social power dynamics of my posters to embody a bottom-up will to connect, though metaphorically, while competing the top-down, highly political wills of separation. Through this workshop, I invited people to share the space of Home for Cooperation to make a bridge between what makes us feel separated and to open the doors to our shared senses of connection by indicating how they define connection and separation through objects and memories.
