The old town mural that reflects ‘the social net’ of Nicosia
A huge, 38-metre wall mural has just been completed on Trikoupi street in old Nicosia – the latest step in the ongoing project to re-brand and rejuvenate the walled city.
Trikoupi, in particular, heading north from Ochi roundabout (and known for a large migrant population, with Omeriye Mosque just down the road), has become almost unrecognisable. The street was closed for over a year in 2024-25 – devastating local businesses – as part of a grand beautification process, with the mural as the latest piece in the puzzle.
The entry point at Ochi is still under construction, with unfinished roadworks and pedestrians having to dodge cars. Further down, however, the changes are evident.
The surface of the road is now cobbled, flanked by metal poles to prevent cars from parking. Shop signs have become more uniform, many in the same font.
Cars have been sidelined, hidden behind a wall in the municipal parking lot – the same wall that’s now covered by the colourful mural.
The EU-funded makeover has certainly made the area nicer to look at – though its previous air of chaotic bustle arguably gave it more personality. But the question remains, does changing the look of the place actually change anything?
It’s a valid question, says the man behind the artwork.
The mural, produced in collaboration with the Nicosia Board of Tourism and Municipality of Nicosia, was commissioned to ‘Twenty Three’, the veteran street artist whose identity – in the style of a Cypriot Banksy – isn’t generally known. He and his team took about six working days to complete the piece, having previously cut the stencils and assembled the various elements.
“My art is never decorative,” the artist told the Cyprus Mail. ‘Twenty Three’ is a political artist, influenced by Social Realism and Mexican painter Diego Rivera in particular, who uses street art “as a way to communicate my voice, my values”.
He’s acutely conscious of his status as an interloper in the neighbourhood – though he does feel connected, since he lives in the old town and knows it well. (He could never make an equivalent mural in Limassol, for instance.) Just to be sure, however, he conducted about 15 interviews with locals before embarking on the project.
“Through the research I discovered that there are many layers. It’s like an onion,” he says. “It’s not about black and white, it’s about all of these people who co-exist here.”
Or, as one of his interviewees put it: “Whether we like it or not, we co-exist.”
The Cyprus Mail also spoke to some locals, and discovered – unsurprisingly – that problems still persist, despite the makeover.
“It looks nice, but it doesn’t change anything. That’s the point,” said one, who asked to remain anonymous.
“Fights still happen. The thieves are still here. Third-country nationals are still here, using drugs.”
The area is something of a patchwork. One building has already been converted to student accommodation – part of the overarching project, which is to bring old Nicosia back to life by flooding it with students.
Just around the corner, however, is another building which (so we were told) is being used for prostitution.
The street doesn’t feel especially dangerous, but it’s obviously home to all sorts of people. We were shown a security-camera video where a deranged man storms into a shop, breaking things and threatening staff with a sword – then, as he half-turns to camera, is revealed to be smoking a drug pipe.
Even with the video, the police apparently did nothing.
His mural doesn’t try to sugar-coat the situation, says ‘Twenty Three’ – but it does emphasise a sense of community.
The piece is structured around four florets of traditional, Lefkara-style lace with wispy strands of lace flowing between them, connecting the characters in the various panels – “the social net”, as he calls it.
One panel shows a man walking a tightrope, standing for the disadvantaged locals who are just “trying to balance”, as he puts it. “It could be financial struggle, mental struggle. It’s about balancing.”
The point, however, is that the man is keeping his balance by holding on to a string of lace from one of the florets – the social net, the web of relationships.
‘Twenty Three’’s main panel is a parade of eight people – he works with stencils, each figure more or less life-size – representing the various inhabitants of this working-class neighbourhood.
The first figure is holding a wrench, clearly a workman. The second is a baker, the third a barber (represented by a pair of scissors). The fourth wears a butcher’s apron. The fifth is a woman – presumably a migrant – with African features, incidentally the only one whose ethnicity is specified.
Then come a woman with a fruit basket, a delivery driver holding packages – and finally a young, rather hip-looking waitress with a tray of drinks, looking forward to the area’s hoped-for future as a place of bars and restaurants.
That’s the point, of course, that ballyhooed future. “People are coming to invest here,” says the artist, ‘here’ being the spruced-up old town.
The name of the game is gentrification – which is not all bad. He’s generally in favour of the new, pedestrian-friendly structure of Trikoupi. But he also mentions a Banksy book, quoting something Banksy was told by an old man in a similar neighbourhood in the UK: “Your artwork is really good – but it raises the rent!”
There’s a paradox here. The mural seeks to artistically depict the authentic character of the area – but, in being artistic, is upgrading the area and changing that character. The act of painting migrants in a street mural may end up hastening the departure of actual migrants from the street itself.
Indeed, there’s a wider paradox linked to street art in general. One panel is a reference to ‘Twenty Three’ himself, showing someone – likely a municipal employee – painting over an image of Ludovico the sheep, the artist’s trademark which he’s used in other, non-commissioned street art.
It’s ironic, he admits. He’s never been part of the system, and in fact the authorities have often erased his murals when they were painted in the ‘wrong’ place – but they’re now paying him to paint one, as long as it’s in the ‘right’ place.
Street artists are engaged in a constant battle for control of public spaces – and the interesting symmetry is that the inhabitants of Trikoupi, too, are caught in a similar battle, their public space having been transformed ‘in the public interest’, to conform with someone else’s vision for the neighbourhood.
To be fair, it’s a reasonable vision: make the place nicer and attract more middle-class visitors, driving out the junkies and ‘bad people’. Even so, ‘Twenty Three’ is noncommittal about his own role in the process.
“To make it clear,” he says, “I don’t believe that my art – or art in general – is offering solutions… I don’t believe that by making a mural you will solve the problems.”
Then again, the guys from a nearby barber shop did come to help when he and his team were designing the barber figure – and of course “we don’t know if some migrants pass by [the mural], and smile when they see it.” The role of art isn’t measurable – but hopefully it can foster community, and thus co-existence.
“I consider myself as part of this net too,” he says.
The mural was created in collaboration with Nicosia Tourism Board and the Municipality of Nicosia.
Photography: Peppinos Skoullos
Organising and painting team: Giorgos Papakonstantinou, Liana Polycarpou, Ioanna Demetriou, Nicholas Charalambous, Kiki Hadjimina, Michaella Mylona