Explore both sides of Nicosia on guided walk

This Saturday, a guided walk around old Nicosia will examine the city’s public squares and how place, memory and power are connected in a divided city. Participants will be led by facilitators Loizos Kapsalis and Esra Plümer-Bardak on a route that will cross checkpoints in the old city, exploring public squares.

The walk will set off from the Home for Cooperation at 10.30am and will last around two hours. It takes place as part of the DeepNic: Mapping Nicosia’s Urban Centre, 1960-2020 project, which traces changes in demography, business activity and monument building, to produce a digital deep map showing the transformation of the urban centre 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.

Saturday’s walk will focus on how public squares facilitate gathering and exchange in society and how they can symbolise collective identity and memory while also representing authority and power. “During this walk,” say organisers, “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.”

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

Guided walk by Loizos Kapsalis and Esra Plümer-Bardak. February 24. Meeting point: Home for Cooperation, Nicosia. 10.30am-12.30pm. www.home4cooperation.info. Tel: 22-445740