Anna Grichting
Boundaryscapes. Recasting the Green Line of Cyprus
“Boundaryscapes” examines contemporary territorial disjunctures and the resulting liminal spaces that are created. Ecoscapes, mindscapes, landscapes, cityscapes, seascapes, mediascapes, ethnoscapes, ideoscapes and financescapes are proposed as a framework for examining boundaries in their multiple facets. Envisioned as an ecological and cultural landscape of memory, as a backbone for reconstruction and reconciliation, the liminal interstitial space is proposed as: an agent of territorialisation; a landscape of unexpected natures and biodiversity; and a locus for the emergence of innovative strategies of environmental planning and reconciliation.
This paper will present research and visions for the Green Line Buffer Zone that divides the island of Cyprus and its capital city Nicosia into a de-jure Greek Cypriot and de-facto Turkish Cypriot territory. The proposal will be argued and illustrated with a number of case studies at different territorial scales - from Transboundary Environmental Peace Parks (the Iron Curtain Green Line, the Korea Demilitarized Zone) to the divided cities of Berlin, Beirut, Belfast.
Anna Grichting's research explores the liminal territories of societies in conflict, in particular the interstitial spaces of boundaries and buffer zones in light of their future transformation as ecological and cultural landscapes of memory. She has just completed a Doctor of Design at Harvard University on the subject of the Cyprus Green Line. Other territories of research include Israel/Palestine, Berlin and the Iron Curtain, and the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Grichting's research has an interdisciplinary outlook, spanning the disciplines of art, architecture, urbanism, landscape and environmental peace building, and she has presented her research at numerous international conferences, including the Lineae Terrarum Conference on borders in El-Paso-Ciudad Juarez, US-Mexico (2006), the IAIA Conference on Korea's DMZ Conservation, in Seoul, Korea (2007), the Peace Parks Conference in Waterton Glacier, Canada (2007), the Conference on Conservation and Management of Landscape in Conflict Regions in Birzeit, Palestine (2007), the World Knowledge Dialogue Conference in Montana-Crans, Switzerland (2008) and the Conference on Landscape and Human Rights, Cambridge University, UK (forthcoming December 2008). She has performed field research, in particular in Berlin and Cyprus, and is collaborating on the publication of an Atlas of Future Peace Parks with Professor Saleem Ali at the University of Vermont, as well as on the manuscript of a book based on her doctoral dissertation on Cyprus (Boundaryscapes. Recasting the Green Line of Cyprus). Anna Grichting's research on boundaries has been integrated into her practice as an architect and urbanist and also extends to art works and musical recordings. Dr. Grichting's academic experience includes teaching Urban Theory and Urban Design studios at the University of Geneva, Switzerland and Harvard University and organizing workshops and study trips on the Berlin Wall, the Cyprus Green Line and the Korean Demilitarized Zone. She is presently a visiting research fellow at MIT with the Jerusalem 2050 project.
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