We need to talk about our coasts
Exhibition and roundtable debates
Forming alliances across the divide for Cyprus Coastal Commons (CCC)
The exhibition and the roundtable sessions focused on creating common concerns across the Cypriot divide regarding the increasing privatization of the Cypriot coastlines. The absence of environmental and urban institutions that address the entirety of the island is a consequence of the ongoing frozen conflict. The discouragement of collaboration among the island’s inhabitants and civil society to promote the coastline commons is an additional consequence. The increasing segregation of large areas of the coastlines from Cypriot citizens and undervaluing of the coastlines island’s natural ecologies and natural resources can be common concerns to address towards the island’s (re)unification. The Hands-on Famagusta project has developed these common concerns regarding the city of Famagusta. The roundtables and exhibition’s spatial arrangements encouraged the exchange of knowledge and know-how between urban actors from both sides of the divide. Experts and citizens from both communities joined the debate regarding the overall Cypriot coastline, departing from that of Famagusta. Only by starting to talk about the coastline’s future will the Cypriot civil society be prepared to play a decisive role in the island’s transformation during a post-agreement era. A counter-mapped Cypriot coastline drawing was the protagonist of the exhibition. A many-meters long drawing unfolded the island’s coastline along one line challenging the dominating cartographic representation of the divided island. As a result, the audience could see the significant urban developments that put at risk the coastline’s natural ecosystems both in the northern and southern parts of the island. The roundtable sessions involved issues of European policy frameworks and fragmented coastal governance. The second part of the discussion was the urgent need to create new alliances in the Cypriot society for the coastal commons.
