An architecture of forgetting, towards a poetics of the 'dead zone' of Nicosia

Adil, Alev (2009) An architecture of forgetting, towards a poetics of the 'dead zone' of Nicosia. In: Memory and Nostalgia: Proceedings of the Eleventh International Cultural Studies Symposium, May 2007, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey. Ege University Press, Izmir, Turkey. ISBN 9789754838022

Abstract

Nicosia, a medieval walled city in Cyprus, was divided by a ‘green line’ in 1964, again in 1974, and remains the last divided capital city in Europe. While the border between the two communities was opened in 2003 the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities live separated by a ‘dead zone’. This paper explores how the ‘dead zone’ works as a site of memory and its attendant forgettings. The aesthetics of the fragment and its multiplication, and an eclectic elision between diverse genres and discursive practices from philosophy to poetry and the multimedia image/text provide a rationale or methodology for a self-reflexive understanding of collective and individual memory.

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