Fragments of Land

Fragments of Land looks at the aftermath of the Cypriot conflict between the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities and the events following the 1974 Turkish invasion of the island, which ended up in the Turkish-Cypriot occupation of its northern part. A juxtaposition of documentary photographs documenting the bordered state alongside archival photographs of familial pre- and post-invasion experiences look at the impact that cultural segregation has had upon displaced households. A visual investigation is undertaken by using these images in a visual narrative which looks at the bordered state of the island and how that state has, after forty years impacted the preservation of memory in a traumatised, bi-communal cohabitation within a divided landscape. The work is manifested from my own experience as Greek-Cypriot, a son of a refugee and a reserve soldier. My part in the conflict as well as my position in the post-generation thus classifies me the authorisation to adopt this subject matter however my ethnicity rather mutes the potential of neutrality in narrating a visual history aftermath based on a corrupted state of affairs. The position of both of the republic’s communities places the perspective of history in a reflection of the divided state of the island and might interrupt, in some ways, a legitimacy of the conflict member’s case. A conflict member being any person involved in the conflict, either by first degree of experience or second: as a post-generation. My recruitment in the National Guard of Cyprus has given me a military experience with the role of defending my own community, somewhat suggested under ideologies of nationalist tendencies. Whereas my upbringing as a member of the conflict was realised under an system of division, of incompleteness, an experience of embellishing oneself as a victim of war, and the constant search for peace under volatile disputes in a long history of hate. My own experience might not render me as representative of narrating the conflict but it renders me able to appeal to awareness. To initiate a discussion on fragmented lands and divided cultures by protruding the spectator.