Notes: Remembered and Found
2021 - 2023
Location: Nicosia, Cyprus
Collaborator: Pharos Arts Foundation
Film: Maria Anastassiou
Composer: Brice Catherin
Musicians: George Georgiou
Writer: Argyro Nicolaou
Research: Olga Demetriou
“The history of displacement in Cyprus is intertwined with that of ethnic conflict” -Olga Demetriou-
In July 1974, Turkish forces invaded and caturped 3% of the Island before ceasefire was declared.. The Greek military junta collapsed and was replaced by a democratic government. In August another invation resulted in the capture of approx. 36% of the Island. The ceasefire line from that month on became the UN buffer line, so called Green Line. Around 150.000 people were expelled from the occupied northern part of the Island, where Greek Cypriots constituted 80% of the population. A little over a year later in 1975, 60.000 Turkish Cypriots amounting to half the Turkish population were displaced from the south to the north. The occupation is still viewed as illegal under international law.
The complicated history of the Island, including British rule which brought colonial administration but government and education were administered along ethnic lines, accentuating differences. For example, the education system was organised with two Boards education, one Greek and one Turkish controlled by Athens and Istanbul respectively. The resulting education emphasised linguistic, religion, cultural and ethnic differences and ignored traditional ties between the two Cypriot communities. The two groups were encouraged to view themselves as extensions of their respective motherlands, and the development of two distinct nationalities with antynostic loyalties.
In this residency the selected creative group will work collaboratively in creating a new piece of sonic/visual experience inspired by personal histories of experiencing political displacement in Cyprus, both Greek Cypriots as well as Turkish Cypriots.
How did the displaced navigate their new realities, away from their home? How have the two sites found common ground? How does the sense of displacement over 45 years ago still occupy and affect peoples lives and that of new generations?
Project Development
Maria Anastassiou
Maria Anastassiou proposes to work in collaboration with her mother, who was internally displaced after the 1974 war. Her mother started collecting interviews with her own mother from the 90's onwards. These were conversations mainly of ethnographic detail about their occupied village. Anastassiou proposes to use these intergenerational female narrators as a starting point to explore her family's narrative of displacement and in extend the wider narratives of displacement in Cyprus, the minor and major losses. This project will on the one hand be an opportunity to digitize and explore this personal archive and on the other, a way to critically engage with the wider social contexts of displacement in Cyprus historically and in the present.
Informed by Olga Demetriou's theories the project will critically engage with the hegemonic narratives prevalent in Cyprus and how they were and still are instrumentalized in the governing of the politics of conflict throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s and up to the present day.
The FILM
Maria Anastassiou has been making a film with her mother, who was internally displaced after the 1974 war in Cyprus. Her mother started collecting interviews with her own mother from the 90's onwards, conversations mainly of ethnographic detail about their occupied village. Anastassiou has used these intergenerational female narrators as a starting point to explore her family's narrative of displacement and in extend, wider questions about inherited trauma and post-memory.
Residency in Nicosia, Cyprus - February 2022
Maria spends weeks in Nicosia with her family absorbing its history in context of what happened to their community back in 1974
Project Meeting in London - July 2022
On a hot July day the Project team, Maria, Brice and George met to further develop the vision for the final outcome of the film and the soundscape. It was a successful meeting with both collaborating artists hitting the same cord when it comes to direction and vision of the film and its sound.
Residency at Art Zoyd Studios in France, September 2022
Brice and George spend a few days in France further developing the music in the exciting Art Zoyd Studios, focusing on the electric parts of the soundscape.
Filming in Nicosia Cyprus, December 2022
Maria went back to Cyprus over the holidays to catch a few more shots ahead of finalising her film, which she aims to have ready by end of February 2023.
