Emotion Mapping: Experiences of the 18th-century European Travellers in Cyprus
by Maria Cristina Manzetti
Exhibition Opening
Friday, 5 April 2024 | 18:30
The exhibition is the preliminary result of the ongoing research project conducted at the University of Cyprus and funded by the YUFE Alliance (Young Universities for the Future of Europe), with the title “The Role of the Crave for Antiquities during the Grand Tour in Shaping European Identity”.
One of the goals of the research is the exploration of the feelings and emotions that accompanied the European travellers who visited Cyprus in the 18th century. The travelogues written during, or even after, the journey are containers of personal experiences equipped with descriptions of personal opinions, feelings, and emotions connected to places. The lived experiences evoked emotions which influenced the idea that Europeans had about this island located in the far south-eastern end of the Mediterranean.
“Emotion mapping is a method whereby the individual either created or populates a map of a designed space with their emotional experiences of that space” (A. Goldman, M. Gervis, and M. Griffiths, 2022). The exhibition shows 10 emotion maps of Cyprus according to the experiences described within seven travelogues composed by European travellers who visited the island between 1683 and 1782.