Collective Dictionary: Xenia with Elena Isayev
Elena Isayev is a historian and professor at University of Exeter uses the ancient Mediterranean to explore migration, belonging, displacement and spatial perception. Her research is based on the intersection of Hospitality and Asylum, Potency of Displaced Agency, Common and Public Space. Her interdisciplinary and inter-practice approach has led to collective learning and research beyond the academy, such as her collaboration with Isshaq Al-Barbary and Diego Segatto in the framework of the project Al Maeishah (“living” in Arabic). As part of a 2017/2018 BAK Fellowship weekly intensive convened by Isshaq Al-Barbary and Diego Segatto (Campus in Camps), Isayev introduced the “Xenia” booklet that she edited together with Al-Barbary and Segatto as part of the ongoing series Collective Dictionary. In exploring the ancient stories and remains of those who moved through a world without maps, borders, or nation-states,this Collective Dictionary entry reveals the shifting attitudes to the outsider—the guest and the host—exposing how fleeting the conventions are that take shape in the here and now.