UNLAND

UNLAND presents both documented and fictional material of the Cyprus buffer zone, Varosha, and British military bases, as well as areas of bicommunal activity and farming. These spaces can appear extremely defined and frozen, in part through military and surveillance architecture, as well as the work of the United Nations within the Cyprus buffer zone. Many areas are blurred and mutable, straddling areas of leisure, nature reserves, tourist areas, farming, and decommissioned zones. These areas appear, strange, uncanny, seemingly in stasis. They can be fascinating, intriguing and hold aesthetic qualities that are at odds with the control, violent history, or their historical and contemporary militarisation. These artworks extend the threshold of the visible through contemporary imaging techniques complemented by the particular ways that artists ‘look’ through making work. The focus of this project has been to move representation of these complex spaces beyond navigation, illustration, aestheticisation or documentation.