Around Nicosia in ... 80 minutes

The cycle expedition Around Nicosia in 80 Minutes took place in May 2022 along the inner and outer rings of Nicosia’s historic walls. It questions the city inhabitants’ split and conflictual mental maps due to the impact of the United Nations Buffer Zone, called the Green Line. Since the beginning of 1960, the historic city’s inner and outer ring roads have been dead-ends since they are interrupted by the divide. The divided, perfectly circular-shaped Venetian Nicosia defensive walls are the irony of the conflict. Since 2003, people may cross the Nicosia divide through controlled checkpoints. However, due to the ongoing frozen conflict and since parts of the two ring roads are still trapped inside the inaccessible thickness of the divide, the residents of the northern and southern parts of Nicosia ignore the presence of the roads that wrap the city’s walls. They are not aware of the different everyday life developed over the last 60 years on the reciprocal parts of the historic city’s ring roads on the other side. On top, there is no public debate about the catalytic role that the old city ring roads may have in the scenario of the city’s reunification. 

The 36 participants, coming from both sides of the divide, took a bike stroll around Nicosia by crossing the checkpoint located on the outer ring road. Hade youth association members drove the two tricycles pulling mobile banners that led and followed the procession. The procession that strolled along the inner and outer ring road had to stop each time it ran onto the buffer zone. Cycling along the other side’s ring roads triggered disorientation in the participants, who had to readjust their mental maps. During a few stops along the trajectory, the bikers and passers-by had the chance to play a game printed on the boards of the mobile banners. The game reenacted the movement around the reunified city’s ring roads. The visual material on the two mobile banners encouraged the players to appreciate new imaginaries, according to which the ring roads become armatures of urban commons (urban design studio, Department of Architecture, University of Cyprus).