Memories of the Other Coast

Narratives of Othering in Lesvos Island

The “Memories of the Other Coast” is a research-led spatial installation investigating the processes of othering on the Greek island of Lesvos and the act of lethe, the ancient Greek notion of forgetting. Located at the border of Greece and Turkey, the coasts of Lesvos have long served as thresholds: a passage, a site of loss, a source of life but also of community engagement and expression, of entertainment and tourism.

After visiting the island, collecting stories through walking conversations with locals and by engaging with testimonies of refugees gathered by other researchers, it becomes clear that the events of 2015, are increasingly overshadowed by the dominant narrative of Greek hospitality. But this topic is not a closed chapter: people are still crossing the Mediterranean, losing their lives, being subjected to pushbacks and strict European border policies. A fact that is rendered invisible by the normalization of border violence. What was once witnessed remains vivid in individual and collective memory, yet invisible in the current public image of the island.

The installation gives these stories a physical and sensory form. Video projections of the island landscape together with narrations of the residents, the materiality of the island and fragments of memories, invite visitors to engage bodily with the topic. By making the invisible visible, a discussion is opening up: how do we construct the other, how does space reinforce exclusion and how do we allow humanitarian crisis to sink into oblivion?

Click here for the film

Click here for the research paper