For the month of May 2024, the Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) was invited by Lower Levant Company on behalf of the team of the Cyprus Pavilion, as part of the Vigil Workspace residencies, to conduct research on the use of surveillance systems and AI-informed technologies within the Cyprus maritime borderscape.

While this year’s Venice Biennale exhibition is titled “Foreigners Everywhere”, the Biennale’s framework is based on nation-state representation, reinforcing borders and structurally excluding ‘foreign’ participation. Borders are at the core of restrictions to the movement of predominantly racialized people – this global regime of exclusion can be seen in Venice, where people have been illegally pushed back to Greece; in Cyprus, where we are witnessing the escalation and normalisation of both state and civilian violence against people on the move; in Palestine, where bordering practices such as the construction of walls and enforcement of blockades have upheld a system of Apartheid and are confining the people of Gaza in genocidal conditions of violence.

A researcher-in-residence, together with other members of BVMN, examined the Cyprus maritime border regime where legal, technological and operational attempts to restrict movement have led to non-assistance, illegal pushbacks and, in some tragic cases, border deaths. These measures have become entangled with the increasing deployment of surveillance technologies such as radars, day and night vision cameras and drones, exposing another contemporary rendition of Cyprus as an ‘antenna island’ in the region. During their research stay, BVMN looked at how these different tools shape this border regime through an interplay between in/visibility, exploring how technologies both produce and obscure forms of oppressive state control.

One outcome of this research is a digital platform (www.cyprusborderscape.com) which visualises the landscape of border control through an interactive map, timelines, and posts developed in collaboration with Forever Informed and αφοα. By assembling this network of actants and elements it exposes violence beyond individual incidents, rendering visible its systematic and deliberate construction through borders. The platform aims to enable the attribution of responsibility beyond causality and offers a tool for collective awareness, mourning, and resistance.