Profiting from Complex Crafted Crises is a Poster Walk through the old town of Nicosia, moving through streets and spaces close to the city’s dividing line. Along the route, posters appear in abandoned and overlooked spaces, as well as in locations that resonate with the project’s questions. Encountered in situ, they prompt discussion and reflection on war, militarisation, power, social justice, ecology and the interconnected crises shaping our present.

The project emerged from a broader inquiry initiated by postgraduate students of the Interface Cultures department and the Critical Data Research Group at the University of Arts Linz, following discussions around anti-gender movements, disarmament and the increasing militarisation of Europe. At its centre lies a fundamental question: Who profits from war and militarisation, and who bears the costs?

The inquiry was first explored through Profiting from War, a joint event held at Ars Electronica’s Deep Space in January 2026. Together with ATTAC Austria and the Ars Electronica Center, students and faculty examined the activities of the arms lobby within the European Union and their wider consequences, developing artistic concepts, counter-strategies, and forms of communication and protest that could contribute to a broader public debate around militarisation and peace.

The discussion soon expanded beyond war itself. Militarisation is deeply entangled with energy resources, climate change, ecological transformation, the concentration of power in technology monopolies, the vulnerability of critical infrastructure and the often invisible influence exercised by a powerful few.

For its iteration in Nicosia, the Poster Walk brings these interconnected questions into the public space. In a city where histories and realities of division remain physically present, the posters establish a dialogue with their surroundings, using artistic intervention and collective discussion to consider how complex crises intersect with the spaces of everyday life.