Pavilion of Cyprus At the 15th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia “Contested Fronts: Commoning Practices for Conflict Transformation”

The “Contested Fronts Open Source Archive” builds on the methodological approach of the “Hands-on Famagusta” project to make explicit three processes that are behind commoning practices for conflict transformation. The three processes are the organizing parts of the exhibition at Palazzo Malipiero, where the “Hands-on Famagusta” ad-hoc technology is both archived and exhibited, together with the work of the international participants. 
The layout of the exhibition is based on a layered presentation of the ad-hoc technology tools at the foreground and their performance as well scenarios of urban commons at the background. Both of them are part of the open source physical space. A system of free standing industrial metal shelves creates rooms within the existing rooms of the pavilion. The space between the new rooms and the existing walls are inaccessible creating a sense of compression and prohibition (alluding to Famagusta’s non-accessible areas). The visitors may navigate, gradually through the three spaces, creating their mental geographies by examining the ad-hoc technology tools on the shelves, by listening to sound episodes from the events, as well as from controversial matters depicted in the www.handsonfamagusta.org. At the same time they can get glimpses of very large size drawings and videos projected on the walls at the background. The exhibition space is divided in three sections, each one corresponding to one of the three commoning processes: “Counter-mapping”, “Introducing Urban Controversies”,“Creating Thresholds”. Large part of each section includes material provided by “Hands-on Famagusta”. Each section is additionally informed with visual material from international practices including “Build-up”, “Archis Interventions SEE”, “Institute of Threshold”, “Passages”, . “Mapping Controversies” and “City Reparo”.