Memorialization, participation and self-representation. Remembering refugeedom in the Cypriot village of Dasaki Achnas
Abstrakt
In 1974, the inhabitants of Achna, all of them Greek Cypriots, were forced to flee their village. Their refuge, Dasaki Achnas, in a nearby British military base became their new and permanent home.
This new village on the base created a post-migratory situation, even though the migration was forced, and was coupled with the traumatic experience of displacement. This chapter focuses on how the villagers memorialized these events and how their memorialization materialized in the Panagia Trachias Church Memorial in the early 2000s.
More particularly, the case study analyses the participatory components of the memorial's construction, where the community, represented by the mayor and the Community Council, engaged in negotiations with the artist Pampos Mihlis, and resisted the critical suggestions of the Cypriot Advisory Monuments' Committee.