Biography:
Madrid 1972. My first memories about my link with photography come to me from my childhood, my father was a photographer an at my early six years I was developing pictures in a improvised dark room with my sister At 27 I decided to...
read on
One of the streets of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
After the invasion of the island by Turkey in 1974, began a policy of repopulation of the northern with settlers from Anatolia
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. There are many allusions to find Turkey on the north side, from the pictures of Ataturk to the flags of football teams.
Cyprus Republic.
At the end of a Orthodox ceremony. The Orthodox Church has been linked to power in the south to the point that at the time of the invasion Archbishop Makarios was the president.
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. One of the tourist attractions in the north of the city is the Bunyuk have built by the Ottomans, is now used as a commercial art gallery and souvenir
Cyprus Republic. The outskirts of the buffer zone are uninhabited and only found carpentry workshops and at night the streets are deserted. Stavros runs a bar whose walls bordering the buffer zone "Green Line"
After the creation of the Green Line the Ledra hotel, one of the most important in the city at the time, became the headquarters of the British soldiers.
Cyprus Republic. Elefheria Square is a project of the arquitect Zaha Hadid bringing a modern touch to de walls, a big shopping mall. To bring the walls back to the people making it again the protagonist.
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Differences between settlers and Turkish Cypriots are observable in the old city, a few Turkish Cypriots want to live in this area
Republic of Cyprus. Each evening is evident from the impressive lighting Turkish flag which is situated in the mountains reminiscent who owns that territiorio busy
Today the news talks about Nicosia finally seems to have a place on the map, the failure of the global economy has succeeded. Never mind the Nicosia I know, the place that I have being documenting during the last two years, the European capital divided for forty years. No mention of the passport control line to cross a street in the main center, or the wall that you find when you walk around a corner.
The images I present show the old city of Nicosia, a curious landscape I found within the Venetian walls of the old city that limit and are crossed by the barrier dividing the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot ethnicities
Southern Europe wounded by the constant reminder of the invader who lives just in front, leaving it away from the rest of the modern city. At the middle is the abandoned buffer zone, where life ceased to exist 40 years ago and whose only inhabitants are the UN troops patrolling the Green Line. In northern poverty of the settlers who lived to repopulate the area from Anatolia after the Turkish invasion to that area of the island
Overall an historic city degraded by a conflict that solution have failed and a wound that is still bleeding.
You can remove a country, you can design new boundaries that separate people, but a city is destined to remain united, must come together and protect themselves, and just be a re-look inward. All cities have rebuilt their historic centers, have them washed and cleaned up for display to the world. Nicosia is not less, must be protected and returned to the living world, politicians and citizens must understand that the city is above them, that was here before and not theirs, they are in it to take care of her and show proud as those who came before and did.
