Right to Arrive: Topographies of Genocide, Flight, and Hospitality

One hundred years ago, Syria was a destination for Armenians driven out of Ottoman Turkey, where as many as a million and a half people died. Those who survived the genocide headed for Aleppo and places further east, where they sought sanctuary. Today, there is a mass movement of people in the reverse direction, as refugees flee conflict and repression in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. The movement of refugees across this broad topography points to the historically-unstable identities of hosts and strangers, persecutors and persecuted. The exhibition of historical photographs by Armin T. Wegner and contemporary meditations on refugee flight draws on ideas about the right to refuge.

Curated by Vanessa Agnew and Egemen Ă–zbek, with Annette An-Jen Liu and Annika Roux, Right to Arrive was first shown at PROMPT Gallery, The Australian National University, Canberra, in 2018. It will be on show at Academy in Exile, FU Berlin, Campus Lankwitz, until September 2021. (Currently closed due to corona restrictions)