Exchanging Lemons in Lefkosia and Lefkoşa

Ovidiu Anton’s poetic work engages with the enduring partition of Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus — a city split since 1963 amid escalating conflict between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. This fracture led to the establishment of a demilitarised strip known as the “Green Line,” named after the pencil mark originally used to delineate it on the map. Heavily monitored and patrolled by UN forces, this buffer zone slices through the city’s urban fabric, separating the two estranged communities. For decades, Nicosia has existed in a suspended state of fragmentation, its daily rhythms shaped by the mechanics of division and control.

Anton enacts a deceptively simple gesture: he picks two lemons from opposite sides of the ethnic and religious rift — one from the Greek side, the other from the Turkish — and switches their places. This understated act, captured on video, becomes a quiet meditation on territory, identity, and the symbolic weight of borders.

The title plays on the city’s dual names — “Lefkosia” in the Republic of Cyprus, and “Lefkoşa” in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus — a linguistic shibboleth that encapsulates deeper geopolitical tensions. Through the subtle choreography of the lemon exchange — using a fruit emblematic of Mediterranean abundance — the artist lays bare the absurdity and arbitrariness of imposed barriers, and the rituals of power embedded in everyday life within a bifurcated territory.

The work ultimately leaves viewers to wonder - with a tinge of irony and poignancy: Does the lemon taste different on the other side?