Women from Cyprus’s two communities created an installation of thousands of knitted flowers

A joint cultural project that brought together participants from across the island around a traditional craft has come to an end in Paphos.
The textile installation “A Thousand Hands, A Thousand Stories: Common Ground” opened at the Technopolis 20 cultural venue in Paphos. The art object, made up of thousands of hand-knitted flowers, is the result of six months of collaborative work by women from the Greek and Turkish communities of Cyprus.
The large-scale work is based on the traditional crochet technique known on the island as “smilio”. Over the course of six months, participants from different regions of the project met, talked and created separate elements that were eventually brought together into a single composition. The exhibition’s organizers and curators — Elena Daniil and archaeologist Elena Stylianou — emphasize that the installation symbolizes shared cultural heritage and serves as a metaphor for cooperation.
The project was implemented by the initiative *Peace2Peace Open Air Crochet Installations*, which has been bringing together women from across the island through shared creativity for ten years. The event was held to mark European Archaeology Days 2026 and took place with the support of the Department of Antiquities and the relevant Ministry of Culture. The organizers dedicated the events to the memory of Christiana Mouzouri, the movement’s co-founder.