Transforming a building frozen in time is what a new temporary exhibition in Nicosia has achieved. Re-utilising a space between the Ledras and Lokmaci checkpoints, cultural organisation D6:EU launched the Imagining Home – Between the Walls exhibition exploring the notion of home and identity.

The exhibition includes the works of several artists – local and international – and is organised in collaboration with artist Julie Gauthron of the French NGO Collectif Habitante, and with the support and partnership of Home for Cooperation.

Its displays, located in a building halfway between the Ledra and Lokmaci checkpoints right in the buffer zone, explore varied approaches to reimagining houses and the concept of home in Nicosia. Running until the end of the month, the exhibition takes place in a significant year – 50 years after the 1974 events and 60 years since the establishment of the UN force Unficyp.

“A house provides the foundational space and physical form for life to thrive, while a home nourishes, protects and fosters a sense of identity. It also requires reinvention. The absence of a home, whether due to conflict or displacement, only magnifies its significance. This exhibition focuses on reimagining ‘home’, emphasising the potential of political and social reinvention, as well as the trauma of the ‘unfinished house’ and the fragile house as a body,” say organisers.

“Building on the idea of the house as a fragile body, this exhibition seeks to engage Cypriots in a dialogue about the resonance of the word ‘home.’ Home is a concept that transcends time and place. While it is intertwined with a sense of belonging, it is also connected to questions of injustice and stories of displacement.”

The whole notion comes to fruition with the works of artists Efi Savvides, Sümer Erek, Julie Gauthron, Nafia Akdeniz and Anaïs LLobet, directed under the guiding hand of the exhibition’s curator Alessandro Vincentelli.

Imagining Home Between the Walls

Group art exhibition in the buffer zone. By D6:EU. Until October 31. Ledras-Lokmaci checkpoint, Nicosia. Wednesday to Friday: 5pm-9pm, Saturday: 11am-7pm. https://d6.eu/