Ex Profugis – Material culture and forced migration in 20th-century Cyprus
CYPRUS, 2022, 10’
Director: Thodoris Vassileiou – Producer: University of Cyprus
‘By the end of 2022, 108.4 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide…’ including refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced persons. This claim by the UNHCR, with alarming predictions of an increase in this number in the coming years, is the irrefutable reality of a continuously volatile world.
Just over the last century, the intensity of forced migration was particularly apparent in the broader region of the eastern Mediterranean. Such massive population movement inevitably signifies the movement of constructs, such as cultural heritage and materiality, with Cyprus – an island familiar with the concept of displacement – providing numerous examples of this phenomenon.
Shifting focus on material culture, the team of the Archaeological Research Unit, University of Cyprus overviews two case studies of forced migration in Cyprus during the 20th century by exploring how objects can be carriers of culture and societal ideas.
