In an old anecdote about two emigrants in Europe, one tells the other that he plans to migrate to Uruguay. He receives the surprised reaction of, “Oh, that’s far away!” The man responds: “Far away from where?”

This question gains new meaning now, as our cultural, political, and physical geographies proliferate with wounded places: sites of conflict; places marked by layers of turmoil; impromptu refuge locations that become permanent. Thus the show explores implications of a shifting and volatile experience in an era of physical displacement and digital connectivity.

The artists in this multi-media exhibition—from Armenia/Syria, Bulgaria, Lebanon, New York, and Poland —respond to the tensions of these wounded places, laying bare the contradictions between intimacy and longing on the one hand, and inarticulacy and an inability to know, on the other. They draw from the rich historic legacies of spaces, transforming them through the work and through the engagement with viewers.

Featuring work by: Tymek Borowski, Yana Dimitrova, Elzbieta Janicka & Wojtek Wilczyk, Simona Prives, Jayce Salloum, Hrair Sarkissian, and Daniel Toretsky, with a site-specific project by Parsons students: Mackenzie Drummond (Integrated Design); James Hernandez (Photography); Larisa Karamchakova (Urban Design); and Damien Karan, (Photography).

Curated by: Malgorzata Bakalarz Duverger, doctoral candidate in sociology at the New School for Social Research in collaboration with: Rami Saab, Anthony Cava, Ivy Lin, Rabia Ali, and Charles Margaritis.