Equipe The Cyprus GreenLineScapes Laboratory

This interdisciplinary project - the GreenLineScapes Laboratory - investigates future visions for the Cyprus Buffer Zone that divides the island of Cyprus. More precisely, it looks at how they can be elaborated through a collaborative process of conceptualization, cooperation, and collaborative design that engages the communities on either side (and within) the dividing line, as well as organizations and institutions in Cyprus and worldwide. The group, composed of biologists, environmental planners, urban designers, architects, political scientists, curators, artists and planners, will discuss how it can communicate and convince the people of Cyprus and the political leaders of the social and ecological opportunities that lie within the territorial and psychological rift. Combining international experts and local scientists, artists and curators active in Cyprus, the project will explore new ways to collect and visualize data in the form of interactive maps for Cyprus, with the objective of curating the ecologies and archaeologies of the conflict into a new vision for the future.
It is proposed to develop a Digital Atlas of Ecological Cooperation as a tool for collaborative mapping technologies with the purpose of designing ecological peace, and to continue working on the design of a prototype for the Cyprus Buffer Zone. Intended as a dynamic, map]based resource on border conflicts with proposed environmentally based solutions, in particular in border areas of conflict zones, the Atlas aims to present a comprehensive vision of existing and ongoing efforts of peace building based on ecological cooperation and the preservation of biodiversity, and to engage these principles in the cause of building trust and peace between parties in conflict. It will present best practices with future visions for ecological cooperation across borders, thereby offering alternative maps of zones of possible peace and transboundary ecological cooperation in existing areas of conflict and strife. The project builds on research on the Cyprus Green Line as well as events and workshops held in Cyprus and Switzerland with local and international stakeholders.