Syria in Transition part 2: Prisons

Join the Migrant Futures Institute for the second instalment of our Syria In Transition series

The second instalment in our three-part series explores how Syrian scholars, practitioners, and activists engage with the Baath regime’s prison-security complex to imagine and shape Syria’s post-war future. Join us for an in-depth panel discussion delving into the legacies, memories, and possibilities emerging from one of the most notorious sites of state violence.

Exhibition: An exhibition from the Syria Prisons Museum will be held from Monday 26 January to Saturday 7 February in the Kingsway Corridor.

Speakers

Christina Varvia
Dr Christina Varvia is a Lecturer at the Centre for Research Architecture, at Goldsmiths. She is a member of the Forensic Architecture agency since 2014 and formerly acted as its Deputy Director and Lead Researcher. Christina’s research focuses on feminist theory and biopolitics within a context of investigative practice and she holds a PhD in Aesthetics and Culture from Aarhus University. She is a founding member and the chair of the board of Forensis e.V., and the co-founder and co-director of the Forensic Architecture Initiative Athens (FAIĀ).

Robin Yassin-Kassab
London-born Syrian-Scottish writer and co-editor of Critical Muslim, Robin Yassin-Kassab is the English-language editor of the Syria Prisons Museum. Author of The Road from Damascus and co-author of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War, he works on preserving testimonies from Syria’s prisons through digital archives and museum curation. His next book, The Blood Between Us, about the post-Assad transition in Syria, will be published in June.

Nour Abo Faraj
Damascus-born journalist and researcher, Nour Abo Faraj holds a Master’s in Media and Communication and has worked since 2011 across Syrian and international media. Currently a 3D researcher and curator with the ISIS Prisons Museum, she specializes in immersive documentation of detention sites. Nour is currently studying at SOAS to obtain her second Masters in Cultural Studies.

Dr Stefan Tarnowski
Stefan Tarnowski is Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities and Film & Screen Studies at the University of Cambridge. Trained as a sociocultural anthropologist, his ethnographic fieldwork focussed on media activism in the 2011 Syrian uprising and subsequent war. He is currently completing his book manuscript, titled The Activist Subject, which follows how media activists and experts attempted to find technopolitical solutions to problems of doubt, uncertainty, and deniability.

Moderator
Dr Sultan Doughan
Co-Director of the Migrant Futures Institute and Lecturer in Anthropology at Goldsmiths, Sultan Doughan is a political anthropologist whose research examines citizenship, memory, and religious difference in Europe. Her work explores how Holocaust commemoration and debates on race and migration shape belonging for Middle Eastern diasporas.

This event immediately follows the MFI Forum, also held in Room 137a from 4.15pm. All welcome to join

prisons.museum/en/syria

Dates & times

Accessibility

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