I Have a Vision: Let the River Unite

Listen to Nairi Khatchadourian’s reading of the article.

I have a vision.

A vision that rises not from hegemonic power, nor from economic ambition, but from the power of imagination.

A vision that begins not in a capital, nor in the halls of diplomacy, but on the riverbank where the Meghri Mountain Range hugs the Araks River, forming a natural mirror to the Arasbaran Mountains. A riverbank where Armenia and Iran meet and the Araks flows quietly between two millenia-old civilizations, two “peuple-monde de la longue durée” (world-people of the long duration), as conceptualized by French geographer Michel Bruneau.

I have a vision that the Araks River, long considered a state border, an artificial line of ideological separation, a geopolitical position desired by all powers, becomes a bridge, a place of convergence. A space where walls, checkpoints and barbed wires dissolve, and orchards of pomegranates and figs grow on both banks, their roots nourished by the same current.

I have a vision that the waters of this river can carry more than the weight of history: they can carry a future. Why, then, are Armenia’s and Iran’s perspectives missing from András Szántó’s book “The Future of the Museum: 28 Dialogues”? I envision a model for a future art institution rising on the banks of the Araks, the first binational contemporary art institution, shared, co-owned and co-directed by Armenia and Iran. A place where art, architecture and nature awaken new collaborative forms of exchange and relationships unearthed from local resources, knowledge, and know-how.

If we name it the Bridge, or the Araks Bridge, this future institution will be a proposal for a reconfigured map. One that redraws the role of cultural institutions in the world, countering the Western imperial museological gaze under the guise of architectural grandeur and spectacle of collections. Like the nature of the Araks River, the institution would be a porous, collaborative and participatory platform, rather than a temple of authority and a monument of nationalism.

I have a vision that in a region fractured by colonial legacies, genocide traumas, and engineered isolation, a new curatorial language could be crafted. One centered around untapped regional contemporary art practices, indigenous ecological knowledge, forgotten archives, diasporic legacies. One that would reveal the region’s own complexities, multiplicities and lived experiences. It would connect artists across the Armenian Highlands and the Iranian Plateau, terrains that give rise to the Araks River, nourishing the waterways of the Tigris-Euphrates Basin, flowing through Mesopotamia, the Levant, and the Persian Gulf. Waterscapes would lie at the heart of a new institutional imagination.

Utopia can serve as both a healing process and a form of statecraft. Édouard Glissant said it precisely—“In an unpredictable world, utopia is necessary.” As our region is marked by wars, embargos and displacements, the most radical act is to build together. To create not in isolation, but in collaboration, at grassroots level, on the land, with the people across the riverbank. To reimagine the border not as a site of violence and division, but as a space of kinship, exchange and shared futures.

I have a vision that this unprecedented undertaking would be the most powerful statement of peace and coexistence. Its foundation would be built on a crossstream of peace, not merely a crossroads, offering an alternative to the dominant cartographies of trade and military routes. The Bridge would ask: What if culture were our diplomacy? What if a peace in this region could be initiated through the vision of such a binational contemporary art institution? It would compel us to understand that no peace, no diplomacy, no real dialogue is possible without culture at its core. That our future depends not on treaties, but on the culture we dare together, across the river. How much do we actually dare?

The institution would not begin with walls, but with relationships: fieldwork, research, residencies, cross-border projects. Walks along the Araks in Meghri with local inhabitants, Armenian, Iranian, and international artists, accompanied by a master of quiet architecture such as Tadao Ando could become a first tangible step: to read the landscape before drawing upon it. The Araks River cartography could lead both countries, Armenia and Iran, to a shared pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2027, rethinking the very idea of national pavilions—already initiated long ago by the Nordic countries.

I have a vision that one day we will all walk across the Bridge and recognize it as a site of care and critical engagement, a path to reconnecting— in this unprecedented barbaric moment of contemporary history—with the very backbone of civilization.

For when the river unites, so can we.

ARTINERARY

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