De Facto recommends

A conversation with Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran about her personal experience of exile, and the political realities shaping our present moment. With an installation by Studio Julian Hetzel, where the audience is invited to the imaginary Embassy of The Untitled States to experience a series of encounters with strangers. April 22, de Balie (Amsterdam, NL).

This spring, Museum Arnhem presents the exhibition Bakudengar (Listen to each other), in which personal stories, collective memories, and contemporary themes from the Indonesian archipelago and its diaspora come together. To be seen till September 20, 2026.

Yasha, who used to be a devoted Soviet worker, is struggling to adapt to reality after the Soviet Union’s collapse - he prefers to continue his life in a state that no longer exists. Edgar Baghdasaryan’s tragicomedy Yasha & Leonid Brezhnev will be Armenia’s submission for the upcoming Oscars’ Best International Feature Film.

For over a century, Kurds have been trying to fight for their rights and freedom. Sadly, their quest has been largely characterized by human rights abuses and marginalization. Hindered by political persecution, their dream of independence has been gradually fading.

The war against Ukraine did not start in February 2022, but in the spring of 2014. And the root of the invasions goes back in time even more, as they were a delayed response to the collapse of the Soviet Union and earlier territorial claims. The online exhibition Borderlands - Ukraine in Historical Maps - with numerous maps and short commentaries, aims to shed some light on the historical backgrounds of the present war of Russia against Ukraine. It was curated by historian Harrie Teunissen and map curator Martijn Storms.

Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera, a small rock in northern Africa conquered by Spain in 1564, holds the title for the world’s smallest national border, measuring just 85 meters in length.

A newly-published book explores the circumstances around the violence that accompanied Transnistria’s de facto secession from Moldova. Three decades later, finding new answers to old conundrums is key to preventing ongoing tensions from escalating.

For years to come, its violent dissolution will loom large in the Armenian consciousness and reverberate across other majority-minority conflicts around the globe.

The third war over Nagorno-Karabakh, the long-disputed Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan, ended almost as soon as it began. The next phase of the tragedy is now unfolding. How did Western inaction enable Azerbaijan and Russia? An analysis by Thomas de Waal.

A wealthy American wanted to build an island republic. The king of Tonga had other ideas.

Waterloo Uncovered, the groundbreaking charity that combines archaeology with veteran care and recovery, will be visiting the Falkland Islands this month to begin the first intensive archaeological survey of its battlefields.

The “world’s most challenging shipwreck search” for one of the greatest legends of exploration history, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance, lost more than a century ago in the icy waters of Antarctica, has succeeded. The site of Endurance was declared a historic monument under the terms of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty.