Nicosia Walk: Nicosia’s Public Squares – Place, Memory and Power in a Divided City

Date: 24 February 2024, Saturday

Time: 10:30-12:30

Starting /Ending Point: Home for Cooperation

Facilitators: Loizos Kapsalis and Esra Plümer-Bardak

***Registration is mandatory and will be completed with the confirmation of the online purchase. Please remember to bring a valid ID/Passport with you.***

Description:

Public squares are spaces of everyday sociability, facilitating gathering, interaction and exchange. They are also important symbolic sites, reflecting collective identity and memory, as well as representing authority and power in the urban landscape.

During this walk, we will visit four squares in the walled town of Nicosia across the divide. We will examine their buildings, monuments and street furniture, and discuss the role these public spaces have played in the social, cultural and political life of Nicosia through time. We will look at how they were shaped by, and in turn shaped, the experiences of coexistence and conflict, and the aspirations for the future of the various communities that have inhabited the urban space.

This educational walk is part of the project, ‘DeepNic: Mapping Nicosia’s Urban Centre, 1960-2020,’ which traces changes in demography, business activity and monument building, to produce a digital deep map showing the transformation of the urban center of Nicosia since 1960. DeepNic is implemented by CYENS Centre of Excellence in collaboration with the Association for Historical Dialogue and Research and Appios Creative Studio, and is funded by the Research and Innovation Foundation of Cyprus.