This Saturday, November 16, we will meet with architect and researcher Sevina Floridou to reflect on resilient, persistent, spaces that defy spatial taxonomy and exist behind the glitz and structured narratives of dominant cultures through a walk in Nicosia. In the duration of their existence, these spaces centre on the constitution of empathic, materially-mediated experiences of the everyday—particularly of joy, love and happiness—emotions which are rarely encompassed or made visible, until abandonment befalls them. Abandoned spaces are characterised by amassed dust. They survive due to an absence of redevelopment but are also endangered spaces.

The dust in them denotes absence.
Abandonment defines absence
Departure is also absence
Death is absence.

Yet only by manifesting the present can we make the past speak, augmenting the breakages with precious re-assemblings to re-create collective memory.

Sevina Floridou is a practicing architect and innovative cultural heritage researcher. She is dedicated to amplifying underrepresented voices, exploring the relationship between architecture, identity and space, co-relating these in what has always been a rarefied heritage pursuit. She publishes on how the island’s two main cultures, Greek and Turkish Cypriot, come together in space-time, through mapping temporal divisions, modernity, conflict and resilience.