Aykan Safoglu is a Turkish-German artist whose works cultivate relationships among cultural, geographical, linguistic, and temporal boundaries. Through his work in multiple media—including film, photography, and performance—he conducts open-ended investigations into the formation and performance of cultural identities, intellectual labor, and alternative modes of kinship. Safo?lu adopts an idiosyncratic approach towards the archive that I believe should be distinguished for its ability to be driven by a desire to listen to and be in tune with queer counter-histories and narratives from the margins. His process has consistently revolved around contemplating, reworking, and challenging performance and literary practices of the Turkish and Euro-American avant-garde (Jean Genet, Ulay, James Baldwin); it is one of excavation built around the aesthetic references and individual trajectories being engaged with and commemorated. For the 2020 Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art, Safoglu mobilized his own position as an immigrant in Germany as well as years of scholarly research in the service of a haunting work, Zero Deficit (In Refusal), which exposes Germany’s complex relationship to Asia Minor at the turn of the twentieth century.