Possible Landscapes
Country: Cyprus
Participants: Monica Alcázar-Duarte, Home 4 Cooperation and Instagram contributors
© (left to right) @libertine @transporter @melissahekkers
Conceived by the Mexican-British visual artist Monica Alcázar-Duarte, Possible Landscapes was a participatory peacebuildling project using Instagram that invited Cypriots to submit their photos to create a shared horizon of the island. The ongoing dispute between Greek and Turkish Cypriots entered its current phase in 1974 when Turkey invaded in the wake of a coup aimed at a union with Greece and occupied the island’s northern third, resulting in the de facto partition between the Turkish Cypriot north and Greek Cypriot south. Despite UN resolutions calling on the two communities to negotiate a comprehensive settlement, reunification talks have repeatedly stalled and the island continues to be separated by a UN Buffer zone which cuts through the capital Nicosia, making it the last divided capital in Europe. Traffic across the buffer zone was very limited until 2003 when crossings were opened, but for many islanders the issue continues to be a highly sensitive and emotive subject.
Possible Landscapes grew out of an artist’s residency on the island were Alcázar-Duarte was playing with the idea of creating images which combined the shared earth and the sky of North and South Cyprus. If the images had some sort of horizon and were placed side by side, they created an uninterrupted landscape in which borders would become undiscernible and what remained was a celebration of the island as a whole. Home for Cooperation is a peace-building organisation located within the buffer zone in Nicosia that uses arts and culture to bring people together. Collaborating with Home for Cooperation to spread the word, the project evolved into an open invitation to the Cypriot community to contribute with their own photographs via Instagram.
Possible Landscapes Instagram feed
@ Possible Landscapes, Cyprus
The Possible Landscapes account was hosted by a chain of contributors who posted pictures, each one extending the invitation to another. Anyone could contribute to the feed by posting their images using #possiblelandscapes. The project took on a life of its own with contributors to the visual conversation from all over the island. They had expected it to last a month but it continued over two years with over 1,300 images submitted, creating online encounters between people who would not otherwise have been in contact with each other. Some engaged without realising its peace objectives and at one point the project hit up against the commercialisation of the Instagram platform when the hashtag got picked up by tourism agencies and the feed filled with perfectly curated tourism images, much to the concern of the original contributors.
Possible Landscapes was an experimental project that sought to create a meaningful online arts community. Instagram proves an effective way to reach lots of people. The project did not require funding and the model was replicated in Bosnia and Herzegovina in partnership with the Post Conflict Research Centre. Alcázar-Duarte is cautious about its peacebuilding impact. She feels the online component needs to be complemented by physical ones such as exhibitions and a publication which uses the archive to create encounters in real life. However, despite its limitations, Possible Landscapes did something important by creating a space where Cypriots could see their country as shared.
‘Possible Landscapes provided a clear, simple structure around creating seamless landscapes via a borderless horizon. There is a simplicity to the visual metaphor but the ways it plays out are more complex.’