Felix Kalmenson

Under the Auspices

Under the Auspices is a research project revolving around the politics of flight paths in Eurasia. Drawing on the notion of ‘turbulence’ as both a tellurian and atmospheric force, Under the Auspices turns to the skies in order to examine migratory flows within international airspace, as a way of divining the shifting geopolitical contestations. Following Iran’s shooting down of Ukraine Airlines Flight 752 in 2020, Belarus’ hijacking of a Ryanair Flight 4978 in 2021, and Russia’s ongoing full-scale war on Ukraine, international agreements on airspace have been recast, redefining sovereignty claims on the skies.

Under the Auspices will concentrate on how these changes have recast Georgia and its airspace as a vital corridor for Western-aligned air traffic, abandoning the efficiency-minded logic of ‘great circles’¹ and reinscribing the meandering ancient routes which cross the Eurasian continent in the form of the ‘Middle Corridor’². Weaving gossip, myth, and speculation across temporal and spatial scales, Under the Auspices tells the story of the human infrastructures – ancient and contemporary – that overlap with avian migratory flows. The project is based around two sites: the Javakheti Region of Southern Georgia and the Shiraki Plain of South-Eastern Georgia, deep-mapping these regions in order to divine a simurgh of the skies’ inhabitants – mechanical and biological.

Text: Felix Kalmenson