“The Golden Cage” is a poetic examination of non-human artifacts, animals, ruins, water bodies, and organisms spread across a highly nationalised terrain. It refers to a set of confinements amidst never-ending catastrophes in the region known as the Fertile Crescent. It explores interconnected political geographies, fragile ecologies and the question of civilization by thinking about neolithic archaeological sites in the area. Since 2018, artist Hakan Topal has developed the project by focusing on the Northern Bald Ibis – the most threatened migratory bird in the Middle East: surviving examples are kept confined in cages to protect them from the ongoing Syrian War. In “The Golden Cage”, as the embodied symbol of the state, the cage is enacted through a fictional administrative text full of cracks and breakages. It is an epic story to create new associations around history, borders, migrations, and untranslatability.