Becoming Cypriot: Borderland Identities in Nicosia’s “No Man’s Land”

This article aims to reconsider the spatio-temporality of Nicosia's Buffer Zone. By foregrounding the border spatial practice as developed through my installation project the Operating Table in relation to literature from philosophy and colonial studies as well as my autobiographical experience, it becomes possible to unravel more nuanced readings of the latent topical border conditions in Nicosia. The article proposes a spatio-temporal reading of the site by enacting a performative visual experience for the viewer. Through this installation, new border relations are made possible. The nonhuman photographic devices scan and reconstruct images in "real" time, producing unexpected relations between background and foreground, accessibility and inaccessibility, organic and inorganic. Through this installation, the border becomes a site of unexpected encounters with one's context. Identities become blurred. The Operating Table aims to create a space that does not construct identities but instead embraces notions of a "minoritarian" race.