Yasmin Avdji

A socially designed tool to encourage conversation between Cypriots regarding their Cypriot identity, heritage and the complicated conflicts within this identity. As a Cypriot living between London and Cyprus I have always had a difficult relationship with my Cypriot identity, not really knowing what it is. Over the course of this project, I came to understand why this conflict many Cypriots like myself have with their identity exists, and through conducting my research found that doing exactly this – researching; conversating, reading, looking, feeling – was helping me put together the broken puzzle pieces left over by colonialism and conflict. With this I felt compelled to make a piece for Cypriots like myself to be given the “tools” to help come to understand this identity better by sharing and conversating, giving a space for this unheard voice to be listened to. By making a series of publications, addressing our history, landscapes and culture which I welcome the viewer to read and respond to, I am attempting to trigger conversation between Cypriots over their unheard voice. Not only this, the design of my piece also references the Cypriot coffee house, a part of Cypriot culture where it was for a long time one of the only places Cypriots had autonomy over their own politicisation. In creating this design I hope for it to be a sensitive and familiar way to begin the conversations that need to occur more often between Cypriots like myself, using conversation to better help understand and accept ourselves and other Cypriots, however they come.