Nicosia Townhall Meeting: Making Space

Part of the Space-X RISE research project
Organizers: Home for Cooperation (H4C) and Laboratory of Urbanism University of Cyprus (LUCY)

Home for Cooperation, Nicosia, Cyprus
Saturday, 1st of November, 9:00-14:00

The project Spatial Practices in Art and ArChitecture for Empathetic EXchange (SPACEX) responds to the troubling rise of populist nationalism and conflict in European societies by engaging new publics and forging a culture that embraces diversity, difference, and discursive exchange within cities, towns and urban sites. In a cross-sectoral knowledge exchange and scoping exercise, it enables researchers from cultural organizations and agencies and academic institutions to test, map, analyse and communicate the ways in which spatial practices effect public exchange and opinion formation in urban spaces, and promote empathetic and inclusive ways of living together.
The Nicosia Townhall Meeting brings together the researchers of the Space X Rise Network who have either spent their secondment at the Cypriot cultural organisations and agencies, Home for Cooperation and AA&U, and the University of Cyprus, or they are based in Cyprus and spent their secondments in the rest of the cultural and academic institutions of the network.
The event highlights the impact of a transdisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach in identifying modes of solidarity and empathetic exchange through spatial practices. During the first part of the event, the director of the Wonder Cabinet, a cultural organisation based in Bethlehem, Palestine, and member of the project network, will unpack how everyday cultural activities, such as music, food, architecture, and the arts, assemble members of the community during difficult times.
A roundtable discussion will follow comprising some of the Space X Rise network researchers and invited Cypriot civil society members. The roundtable discussion is organised around short interventions and discussion among the participating researchers who will revisit their findings and share reflections. They are invited to discuss ways to connect urban everydayness with spatial practices in art and architecture. The Townhall event is a unique encounter of researchers and practitioners towards a discursive exchange of methodologies and approaches for the creation of empathetic ways of living in times and spaces of conflict.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE).

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