‘Prayers Long Silent’: Protecting endangered heritage in post-conflict Cyprus

Special NTU-ANU lecture by Michael JK Walsh, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore

The walled city of Famagusta, Cyprus, with its French Gothic churches, exquisite 14^th-century frescoes, towering Venetian walls, domed Ottoman hamams, and majestic British Imperial architecture, should be a UNESCO World Heritage Site – but it is not. Instead, as a result of the Turkish military intervention in 1974, and the ensuing political stalemate that exists to this day, the city and its heritage have become dangerously isolated, its architectural and art-historical treasures within its walls virtually forgotten.

Following the successful nomination of Famagusta to the World Monuments Fund (WMF) Watch List in 2008 and 2010, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (with the WMF and the Famagusta Municipality) led a series of international efforts to protect, stabilize and study Famagusta’s irreplaceable heritage, and in particular its extant murals.

This seminar will discuss this initiative, exploring how, in 2015, the United Nations took over the NTU / WMF led project, indicating strongly a welcome move towards a recognition of international responsibility to protect universal heritage in post-conflict zones. This presentation will include the screening of a short documentary film produced to highlight the relationship between culture and politics, and the interface between art history and technology.   

Michael Walsh is Associate Professor in the School of Art, Design and Media, NTU, Singapore. Previously at Eastern Mediterranean University (Famagusta, Cyprus), he was team coordinator for the United Nations project ‘Cultural Heritage Data Collection in the northern part of Cyprus’. He has published extensively in the broad area of 'Conflict and Culture', including This Cult of Violence (Yale University Press, 2002), A Dilemma of English Modernism (University of Delaware Press, 2007), Hanging a Rebel (Lutterworth Press, 2008), London, Modernism and 1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and Australia and the Great War: Identity, Memory and Mythology (Melbourne University Press, 2016). He is currently working on the poet / songwriter Eric Bogle.

Enquires: Christina Rose, Senior Administrative Officer, Office of the Dean, CASS: 6125 8535 ; Christina.Rose@anu.edu.au