Genocide as an opportunity

BEIRUT — These days, much of the wall space of Marfa’ Projects has been turned over to treasure maps. Their details are often basic. You may search in vain for one of the four points of the compass, but the significance of particular spots on each landscape is signaled by an array of cryptic symbols (crosses, keys, snake figures, a three-headed human figure, chickens).Gallery visitors may be inspired to train their mobile phones’ translation apps on scrawled lines of Armenian, Arabic or Turkish script littering a map. The device may detect traces of Farsi, Bulgarian or Indonesian, but not much meaning.Rooted in a history of state-building, ethnic cleansing and genocide, and distorted by contemporary poverty, conspiracy narratives and opportunism, the maps are evidence of a snarl of stories worthy of Umberto Eco. These 19 photographic...