How and when did you find out about Varosha, and what do you find interesting about it?

I remember when I was younger, being taken to a lookout post in the south east of Cyprus. There was a long telescope that pointed not at the sky, but at an empty city. I was told this was the closest we could get – that the people who lived there had fled one morning in 1974, and no one had been inside since. I remember wondering whether I would ever set foot there and dismissing it as unlikely.

Could you briefly explain what happened in Varosha – what was it like before 1974 and why was it abandoned?

Varosha was one of the most glamorous beach resorts in the Mediterranean. It was a favourite with Elizabeth Taylor and the jet set, as well as the birthplace of ABBA. But in 1974 the military dictatorship in Greece tried to depose the democratically elected President of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios III, in a coup. In response Turkey invaded from the north. When Turkish airstrikes hit Varosha on 14 August the inhabitants evacuated. Most took nothing with them as they expected to return quickly. That was fifty years ago. The city was fenced off as a bargaining chip for negotiations, but there was never a peace agreement, only a ceasefire.

What were the logistics behind your visit – e.g. did you need to get permission to enter, were you free to roam on your own, etc?

Bizarrely, the Turkish military, which is still in de facto control of the perimeter, has decided to open it up to tourists. They have re-paved one of the main streets (it is already cracking because of all the plant roots) and you can hire a bike or walk around. On the desolate beach front there is an ice cream stand. Turkish Cypriot police stand guard and all the buildings are roped off because the ceilings are falling in. Parts of the city are also mined.

What kind of emotions did you feel as you were walking around?

I felt quite dissociated as it was difficult to process what I was seeing. There was almost no one else there. With the rope barriers, it felt as if I were touring the set of a film about a disaster that had wiped out humanity – as if I was about to turn a corner and see Pedro Pascal in a dirty utility shirt having his makeup touched up. At the changing of the guard, tannoys would play Für Elise, which was unpleasantly reminiscent of Squid Game.

Is there anything in particular you’re trying to capture in these images?

Opening the place to civilians seems to invite disaster tourism, but it feels important that we keep sight of the fact that these thousands of buildings each represent the ruin of a life. A building without people is a kind of corpse, a body missing its soul. There is something deeply melancholy about what remains, offering suit tailoring for missing bodies, glasses for missing eyes. A discotheque with no dancing feet and no warm breath. Here is a Kodak sign and an empty beach; there is a Coca Cola sign and no one to drink.

Why is now a good time for us to think about Varosha and Cyprus more generally?

I find it hard to believe anyone would look at this place and see victory. Cyprus stands as a warning that the opportunity for a just solution can expire. There are people on both ‘sides’ who left home half a century ago and never returned. Contrary to popular belief, concrete doesn’t last for ever: you can see in Varosha that it barely lasts fifty years. The city, and the past it represents, cannot be re-inhabited now, only condemned. So if one of our most beautiful places is ever to be lived in again, we will have to build something new. It is easy to see the tragedy in that judgement, but it is possible to find hope in it, too.

As a British Cypriot, why was this book important to you personally?

When I think of my own dual identity, it is clear that my life has been enriched by it, and that offers me an important vantage from which to recast the island’s history. We have already begun to move away from saying that someone is ‘half British, half Cypriot’, like an Exquisite Corpse, and towards a more layered understanding of identity. But we have yet to extend that understanding to hybrid cultures like that of Cyprus. If we view a cultural influence as competing with what came before, it becomes a source of conflict; but when we view it as additive, we open a space to understand how each new layer enriches the community.

These responses were given as part of a photo essay for the Observer. An extract from Cypria depicting Varosha is published in the New European.