Christos Thomas, born 1946.
He saved my life twice. The first time we were just kids playing football in the street, and he pulled me out of the way of a car. The second time we were both 17 and he saved me from a metal bar sticking out of a passing lorry. I remember going to the library with him and he would borrow books on ancient Greece and Homer. He spoke perfect Greek. In 1964 I heard his father Hussein had been shot dead at point blank range in Nicosia. We lost touch and I’ve been trying to find him since the borders opened in 2003...

Gina Sarrou, born 1977.
I heard the word ‘tzivaeri’ in Greek songs and they told me it is of Turkish origin and means ‘the treasure that grandmothers keep in their trunks’. For me the most precious things in my life, my personal treasures, are my friends and loved ones. The people that travel this life with me. I don’t need to keep them in a trunk. They are free, but they are with me.

Vartan Malian, born 1927.
I was born under a Red Cross tent in a refugee camp for Armenians that had survived the genocide. We arrived in Cyprus when I was three and a half years old. Nicosia was under curfew and all the lights were off. I asked my father why and he said “It’s because the people have been naughty...” That was the first Greek Cypriot uprising against British colonial rule in 1931. It is my first memory of my life in Cyprus, and nothing has gone right here since then.

Stavros Karayianni, born 1965.
We used to spend the summers at my aunt’s house in Famagusta. My cousins and I would go down to the beach together. I will never forget walking through the citrus orchards, and gradually the red earth becoming yellow, hot sand. That moment, of the transformation of the soil, made such an impression on me. I would always take off my sandals. I haven’t been able to return there – the area is now in a closed military zone.

Leyla Kiralp, born 1954.
I met Ahmet in 1973. When he saw me he said “this is the girl I am going to marry. It’s either her or no one.” It all happened so suddenly, and it ended suddenly too. On the 14 August 1974, a group of Greek Cypriots stopped in front of our house in a jeep. Some of them were our friends. They told Ahmet to give me his wedding ring and wristwatch. It was the last time I saw him alive. He was shot along with 87 other men and buried in a mass grave. I have carried this pain and internal conflict within me for many years, but I don’t feel hatred towards all Greek Cypriots. I just want Cypriots to stop killing each other under the flags of Greece and Turkey.

Yücel Emre, born 1952.
Our neighbourhood in the Yeni Djami quarter of Nicosia was like one big family and doors were always open. In 2008 we went back there but my mother’s house was gone. I emphathise with all those who have lost their homes – everybody in Cyprus feels something is missing because our houses carry our memories. But material things don’t matter. A home is the neighbours and the people that live around you... all the beautiful things that have been swept away. The traces of our joint culture are in the simple things, the smells we like, the tastes we enjoy, the way we are with our families.

Mesut Emre, born 1940.
I have many Greek Cypriot friends and we love each other. So why do we fight? All this suffering is for nothing. Forty years have passed and we want a solution. I want to be able to visit my friends.

Phaedon Zacharoudes, born 1977.
Ten years ago my arts professor asked me why I wanted to be an artist. I said “because I want to communicate.” After years of being a shy kid I was finally out with it. I have since discovered I haven’t got just one voice but several different voices. But with the contemporary world booming with information and issues, it is becoming increasingly hard to make ourselves heard. The challenge is to keep using our imagination to externalize what lies within. This is the link between us all that has the power to shape civilizations and history. It is an embrace permeating everything.