‘Deep Silent Gaze’

Set into a low wall, this mosaic looks at first like a study in ocean life: teal petals fanned out like sea anemones, iridescent glass discs catching the light like fish scales, a palette drawn straight from creatures of the deep. It was made in 2025 by pupils of Limassol Primary School IB, Lanitio, under teacher Elena Haralambous, as part of a fine arts unit on deep-sea patterns.

But the accompanying plaque reframes the piece entirely. Titled Deep Silent Gaze, it's presented as a tribute to children whose lives were lost to genocide, naming Palestine, Rwanda, the Holocaust, Pontus and Armenia, and closing on a line specific to where it stands: from the children of Cyprus, who carry in their own young souls the wounds of the Turkish invasion of 1974. What plays as decorative pattern work becomes, once read alongside the text, a quiet, tessera-by-tessera memorial built by children for children.