- Systemic changes
This research investigates modes of habitation wherein objects are acting as social incubators. Achna, an abandoned village within the Turkish held territory of Cyprus, is a testing model explored against its surrounding context.
Focussing on the moment of interaction with the space, the project proposes a virtual reality walk through a digital platform. This takes place within a physical forest occupied temporarily by the displaced community in 1974. The walk through the platform is a re-enactment of an all-female activist procession into Achna from 1989, being the only recorded breach of the border until recently. The re-enactment is seen as a moment of exchange in transit between the physical and the digital.
Participatory practices are seen as an opportunity to re-organise spatial relations that trigger alternative perceptions of space, therefore framing certain political claims. The motive of the project is the protection of the practice of living, as opposed to the space of it.
A Cypriot coup d’état on the 15th of July 1974 initiated the Turkish invasion in the island which lasted 3 days. The still from the video shows a month long daily-report starting from the day of the invasion up until the establishment of the ceasefire line which became UN’s Buffer Zone, commonly known as green line. On the last day the newly introduced map of the island was broadcasted for the first time, in colour.
The main venue of the Old Cinema, as this sits within the digital environment, is experienced from the existing walking platform that is in the forest where objects float around in the digital world, detached from the laws of gravity, the objects are constantly in transit to extrapolate the key theme of the research.
After the 2003 opening of the barricades, orthodox churches in the northern Cyprus have been serviced sporadically, always after a collective initiative of the displaced community. In the case of Achna, this was never possible due to its occupation state. In spite that, the community was gathered after 1974 in two other churches which are in a 2 km distance from the occupied settlement. The still shows 3D scanned environment of one of the churches.
Home is where you belong, and the new domestic environment triggered this very sense of belonging through objects. Acting either as metonymies or metaphors of their past space, such objects are found still today in the living rooms, where they are statically decorated forming an almost museum-like setting that challenge us to rethinking how we interact with them. The example shows reproduction from a 3D scan of such space as it stands today in the new settlement.
The platform is an answer but also a question to modes of habitation. It emphasises on the things that we associate ourselves with , when occupying a space. Our embodied history, memories and rituals. But also acts as a testing ground to question “Is this enough?”. Since the proposal is empirical then the answer is subjective and personal to the users.
