Ayshe-Mira Yashin
Email: ayshemira@gmail.com
Instagram: @ayshemira
Etsy: @theillustrationwitch
Ayshe-Mira Yashin (b.2003) is an illustrator and visual artist based in London. Her practice intertwines matriarchal storytelling with land-based rituals that engage with politically charged sites, taking form in narrative miniature-style prints, hand-bound books and illustrative contributions to the Earth-Body Art genre pioneered by Ana Mendieta.
She regularly provides readings with her handmade tarot deck, The Earth Mother Magic Tarot, within queer and feminist communities.
She regularly provides readings with her handmade tarot deck, The Earth Mother Magic Tarot, within queer and feminist communities.
CV
Burned House Horizon, Mimosa House, London, January - February 2025
Manifestations: Views of the Otherworldy in Painting & Drawing, NiMac, Nicosia, March - July 2024
Do You Buy This?, Ugly Duck, London, August 2023
The A to Zine Show, Queercircle, London, January 2023
The Directory, Koop Projects, Brighton, January 2023
Tongue in Trees: Ecocriticism and Art by the Courtauldian, photobookcafe, London, December 2022
They/Them/Their: Naturally Not Binary, IMT Gallery, London, August 2022
Protest, Fronteer Art Gallery, Sheffield, September 2021
Burned House Horizon Artist Residency, Bidston Observatory and Artistic Research Centre, October 2024
NFTS BFI Film Academy Craft Skills Residential, Beaconsfield Studios, September 2021
NFTS BFI Film Academy Screenwriting Residential, Beaconsfield Studios, December 2019
Queer Goddexes & Speculative Scripts, Co-facilitation with Byuka aka Fortune Tailed Beast, Mimosa House, January - February 2025
Earth Mother Magic Tarot Ritual-Workshop, Co-facilitation with Byuka aka Fortune Tailed Beast, Ugly Duck, August 2023
Zine-Making Workshop Facilitation for Grrrl Zine Fair, The Feminist Library, June 2022
Intro to Bookbinding, Artist Books and Zines, Independent Facilitator for Long Con Mag, Online, March 2022
Zine-Making and Bookbinding Workshop Facilitation for Grrrl Zine Fair, Newington Green Meeting House, March 2022
Climate Justice Themed Zine-Making Workshop Assistant Facilitation for Grrrl Zine Fair, Anglia Ruskin Chelmsford, September 2021
Interviewed Artist in The Pamela Colman Smith Tarot Deck by Laura Connell - British Art in Motion, December 2023
Featured Tarot Artist in Witchology Magazine: The Balance Issue - Witchology, March 2023
Featured in Ten Queer Feminist Zines to Watch Out For at Grrrl Zine Fair - Dazed, March 2022
Contribution to Third Shelf Journal, Issue 2: Fluids, September 2024
Contribution to Qafiyah Review, Issue 2: Sumac, March 2024
Contribution to Dyke House Press, Issue 3: Dyke Rage, December 2023
Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, Distinction, Camberwell College of Arts, 2021 - 2022
Portfolio
The viewer is invited to explore the SBAs through a character who’s gaze positions the British inhabitants of these territories as more visible subjects, subverting their position as perpetrators of surveillence who are themselves rarely “seen” (by people in mainland England). This gaze challenges the constructed invisibility of the military-colonial infastructures of the SBAs, some of which were intentionally documented through the practice of illustration due to the prohibition of other forms of “recording”.
Offset lithography from hand-drawings
April - May 2025
4 x 820mm x 340mm
Site 1: Kolossi Castle, a former Crusader stronghold
04.04.25: Ever since December 2023, the UK military has been sending almost daily surveillance flights over Gaza from RAF Akrotiri, which is only a 40 minute flight time away. The number of surveillance flights operated by the UK has now reached over 645, accounting for nearly half of all surveillance flights over Gaza since the start of the genocide.
Before entering Akrotiri, I looked down at it from Kolossi Castle. From above, I could see the small non-functional bus stop which marks the border between the Republic of Cyprus and the United Kingdom. I could also see what I identified as PLUTO II, a huge curtain antenna which is 100 meters tall, used by the British to detect airplanes and missiles in countries as far from the island as Kazakhstan.
Akrotiri is one of the two British Sovereign Base Areas (SBAs) in Cyprus, and is used as a launchpad for British and American military operations. Alongside Dhekelia, the other SBA, it is considered to be a major listening post of the West, hosting a wide range of US and UK signals intelligence gathering facilities.
Site 2: A militarized artificial hill in RAF Akrotiri
04.04.25: One of the first things I noticed when we crossed into SBA territory was an artificially constructed hill. My dad, who was driving, said that this is what militaries use to camouflage tanks and other military equipment. He was born in 1958, when Cyprus was still a British colony. Two years later, on 16 August 1960, the Treaty of Establishment was signed between the United Kingdom, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, which was meant to mark the establishment of Cyprus as an independent nation-state.
But the British only agreed to give Cyprus “independence” under the condition that they would keep the parts of the island that they deemed “militarily necessary” at a point in history when the British Empire was losing other military bases and intelligence facilities across the region. So they kept Akrotiri and Dhekelia, which together make up 99 square miles, 3% of the land mass of the island.
Through collaboration with local elites, the Treaty of Establishment essentially allowed for the continuation of the British vision of Cyprus as an “unsinkable aircraft”.
Site 3: Dhekelia Station, Eastern Sovereign Base Area
02.04.25: During his visit to RAF Akrotiri on 10 December 2024, Keir Starmer gave a speech addressing the British soldiers at the base. He said, “this space obviously, sort of has multi dimensions to it. There’s a lot of different work that goes on. Iím also aware, that some or quite a bit of what goes on here can’t necessarily be talked about all the time.”
In Dhekelia, Arçın showed us around the areas near the coast, past Waterloo Road. The geometric shapes of the road signs and the curved, flat roads made it feel like an outdated English coastal town. There were large areas of land that were blocked-out, militarized zones. There were prefab-style buildings, different forms of temporary infrastructure, which made it feel like a temporary place that people who donít have deep ties to pass by during the course of their military careers.
In both Dhekelia and Akrotiri, there are British schools, recreational clubs and shops catered to the needs of the British families who live at the base. The SBAs also have their own police system, courts and a prison - all of which function separately to the other parts of Cyprus.
Site 4: The end of Ladys Mile, South of the RAF runway
04.04.25: In the early hours of the morning, a surveillance flight returned to RAF Akrotiri after spending 5 hours over Gaza, having collected footage at a time when “Israeli” annihilation of Gaza was escalating. Not long before this surveillance flight was in the air, “Israeli” forces attacked three schools which were being used as a shelter by displaced Palestinians in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza city. At least thirty-three Palestinians were killed, and more than one-hundred people wounded, as a result of these strikes.
It is highly plausible that intelligence from British spy flights over Gaza could be used by the “Israeli” Occupation Forces for military operations. The type of surveillance gathered from these kinds of flights is typically used to provide ground commanders with targeting information. The Ministry of Defence insists that the purpose of these flights is to aid “hostage rescue” - but this doesnít account for the extreme number of flights.
The RAF surveillance aircrafts take off and land from a runway that lies behind a long wire fence at the Southern end of Ladys Mile - on an almost daily basis.
Site 5: The abandoned RAF camp in Pergama/Pergamos
02.04.25: The abandoned RAF camp in Pergama was used by the RAF to fly helicopters, but it was demolished in 1997, Arçın told me. The British most likely closed it because they wanted to move their focus to Dhekelia (which is a few minutes away) and Akrotiri - but the part of Pergama that the abandoned camp lies within is still under British sovereignty.
When my dad was a small child in the 1960s, he and his mom would visit relatives in Pergama every summer. In those summers in the village, when he and the relatives’ children played outside, they knew that if they crossed the bridge over the creek, they would be in British territory. My dad brought black-and-white photos of those distant relatives to Pergama to try to find out if they still live in the village by asking locals if they knew who they were. But when we got close to finding them, he didn’t want to continue searching.
When the British demolished the RAF camp in Pergama, the areas that once hosted its infrastructures became overtaken by nature. Arçın and I walked through the trees that had grown over the land that once hosted the RAF camp, and collected weeds and small flowers.
Site 6: A funeral for a helicopter: RAF Akrotiri base
31.03.25: An “Israeli” air strike on the Hamada family home on Yafa street in the Tuffah neighbourhood east of Gaza city killed at least ten Palestinians and injured many others. Whilst this war crime took place, another RAF surveillance flight which departed from RAF Akrotiri was in the air over Gaza. By providing surveillance to the “Israeli” Occupation Forces, the UK is not just complicit, but an active participant in this genocide.
Also on this day, the RAF transported two fighter jets and a refuelling aircraft to the Red Sea from RAF Akrotiri. The purpose of this is to shield US military assets such as naval aircraft carriers from being attacked by the Ansar Allah (also known as “the Houthis”), who had imposed a naval blockade on all “Israel”-linked ships, and to reinforce the US bombing campaign on Yemen by providing fuel for the US jets via RAF Akrotiri.
On the same day that the RAF conducted these operations, the official Instagram page of RAF Akrotiri posted about a strange militaristic ritual which was held at the base, to “bid farewell” to an RAF helicopter, marking the end of its “impressive” 54 years of service.
Site 7: RAF Akrotiri, the British launchpad for genocide
06.04.25: Pavlina told me that the amount of flights flying in and out from the RAF Akrotiri base had increased in recent weeks. On this particular day when we were in Akrotiri, the base was used to send a refuelling aircraft and two fighter jets to Syria, likely aiding the “Israeli” forces’ bombing of the city of Palmyra.
And also on this day, the British military used RAF Akrotiri to launch a refuelling aircraft to the Red Sea, around the time that the US carried out airstrikes on a citizen’s home in the Sheab al-Hafa neighbourhood in the Shu’ub district of Sana’a in Yemen. These US strikes killed four people in Yemen and injured sixteen others.
And also on this day, the RAF launched another surveillance flight over Gaza - this was on a day when “Israeli” attacks across Gaza killed forty-three Palestinians, including those who were sheltering in makeshift tents after having been forcibly displaced. None of this activity was reported in any British mainstream media outlets - keeping updated on this news relies on following the posts of independent journalists and local activist groups.
Site 8: A militarized British neighborhood, Akrotiri
06.04.25: Pavlina and I drove through a British residential neighbourhood ten minutes away from the RAF base. Most British soldiers who are deployed to Akrotiri come here with their families, and if they work in the army, their housing, gardening and maintenance is provided. Connected to this neighbourhood, there is a private beach behind a fence that only the residents of these houses know the code of. The whole neighbourhood is enveloped in wire fencing, the same kind as the fencing that envelops the militarized zones, making it feel like an enclosed space even though anyone can drive in without showing identification.
When we were out of SBA territory, we noticed that the names of all the streets inside this neighbourhood were missing from Google Maps. The only references to the names of these places on the internet are in the online forums of former Akrotiri residents who reminisce about their childhoods at the base. In my notebook, Pavlina and I wrote our observations: It feels like a made-up neighbourhood, because the street names are copy-pasted from British places and things. We witnessed at least 3 flights leaving from Akrotiri today. And the people living in these houses are the ones participating in the system that launches them.
Site 9: Dhekelia Bay, a beach by Lambros Fish & Chips
02.04.25: On this day, whilst we were in Dhekelia, RAF Akrotiri was used to send two fighter jets and a refuelling aircraft to the Red Sea, as well as another surveillance flight over Gaza, on a day when “Israel” killed at least seventy-seven Palestinians in Gaza and attacked an UNRWA clinic in Jabalia in northern Gaza.
Very near to Dhekelia Bay is the RAF runway of this SBA. Unlike the Akrotiri runway, the Dhekelia runway is out in the open, directly next to one of the main roads, preceeded by a traffic light system that warns of forthcoming flights.
In Dhekelia, Arçın took me and my dad to Lambros Fish & Chips, one of the many pubs and fish & chips restaurants in the SBAs frequented by off-duty British soldiers and their families. The British people there carried themselves differently to tourists in other parts of Cyprus. When we sat, I wrote in my notebook: They are extra comfortable, their bodies occupy space as if they are in a place that they own. Some of them may have been here for their whole lives, or even come from families who have been here for many generations.
Site 10: The British intelligence installations of Akrotiri
06.04.25: The surveillance that is collected from the SBAs provides UK and US agencies with a real-time flow of information and can be used to intercept military and diplomatic signals, construct electronic maps of troop movements, and intercept fax, emails, mobile phones and telephone communications.
Pavlina and I drove through one of the long roads which connects Republic of Cyprus territory to RAF Akrotiri. Early into this road, we were surrounded by dozens of huge military intelligence installations. They looked and felt like weapons digging into the earth violently. Very near to this antenna site was an environmental center which one might think is a greenwashing front for the ecological damage caused by the antannae.
The antennas in the SBAs can intercept signals from across West Asia and its surrounding regions, but still enforce their own invisibility through signs that prohibit taking photos, flying drones, or even stopping or parking near the antenna sites. The intelligence is shared with the NSA, making it equally important as a US listening post in the region.
Site 11: Waterloo Road, a land known for it’s red soil
11.04.25: My dad and I drove through Dhekelia for a last time, through the potato fields across the RAF runway. Around the time of my week-long trip to Cyprus, the US-UK bombing campaign on Yemen was escalating. Since the Ansar Allah were forcing US aircrafts to turn away and making them unable to attack without mid-air refuelling, the British role of providing fuel via RAF Akrotiri was essential for the US to carry out further strikes.
Likewise, the RAF has been using RAF Akrotiri to supply “Israel” with weapons, as well as allowing the US air force to use the base to deliver weapons to “Tel Aviv.” At least 60 British transport flights have travelled mostly from RAF Akrotiri to “Israel” since October 2023. These flights can transport helicopters, tanks, and various types of military equipment.
In October 2023, the UK military’s “D-Notice” committee sent out an “advisory” to all British media outlets not to report UK military activities related to Gaza. This form of censorship, which goes beyond the usual level of discretion, reveals that RAF Akrotiri is being used for purposes the government seeks to keep hidden from the public eye.
Site 12: A transfer of rule: HQ British Forces Cyprus
11.04.25: Whilst I was at the airport on my way back to the UK, I saw that it was announced that Major General Tom Bewick of the British Army took over as “Commander” of the SBAs from Air Vice Marshal Peter Squires of the Royal Air Force. Air Vice Marshal Peter Squires had been the “Commander” and “Administrator” of the SBAs for the duration of the Gaza genocide and oversaw all UK military atrocities during that period.
As he transferred his command, he said: “It’s been a blast. I’m desperately going to miss the place, the food, and the people […] It’s been a unique experience both running the overseas territory and dealing with all the operations that we have achieved over the last years.”
And as he took over command, Major General Tom Bewick said, “I’ve had plenty of advice coming in, not least of which to make sure both I and my family are able to enjoy everything Cyprus has to offer, but really to enable all those who are based here alongside their families to enjoy themselves as well. It’s a really critical set of jobs here to do – but oh my goodness, we’re lucky to be here.”
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