Art, Borders and Belonging: On Home and Migration

by Maria Photiou (Editor), Marsha Meskimmon (Editor)

Overview

Art, Borders and Belonging: On Home and Migration investigates how three associated concepts-house, home and homeland-are represented in contemporary global art. The volume brings together essays which explore the conditions of global migration as a process that is always both about departures and homecomings, indeed, home-makings, through which the construction of migratory narratives are made possible. Although centrally concerned with how recent and contemporary works of art can materialize the migratory experience of movement and (re)settlement, the contributions to this book also explore how curating and exhibition practices, at both local and global levels, can extend and challenge conventional narratives of art, borders and belonging.

A growing number of artists migrate; some for better job opportunities and for the experience of different cultures, others not by choice but as a consequence of forced displacement caused economic or environmental collapse, or by political, religious or military destabilization. In recent years, the theme of migration has emerged as a dominant subject in art and curatorial practices. Art, Borders and Belonging thus seeks to explore how the migratory experience is generated and displayed through the lens of contemporary art. In considering the extent to which the visual arts are intertwined with real life events, this text acts as a vehicle of knowledge transfer of cultural perspectives and enhances the importance of understanding artistic interventions in relation to home, migration and belonging.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350203082
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	04/22/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Maria Photiou is an Art Historian and a Research Fellow at the University of Derby, UK. Her research focuses on women's art practices and the connections between migration, gender, memory and the politics of belonging.

Marsha Meskimmon is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History&Theory at Loughborough University, UK. Her current research is particularly engaged with connections between transnational feminisms, contemporary art and the environmental humanities.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Contributors

Introduction: Art, Borders and Belonging: On Home and Migration, Maria Photiou (University of Derby, UK) and Marsha Meskimmon (Loughborough University, UK)

1. Weaving Together: Narratives of Home, Exile and Belonging, Maria Photiou (University of Derby, UK)

2. Parastou Forouhar: Materialising Pain and Beauty, Lydia Wooldridge (Bristol School of Art and University of the West of England, UK)

3. Deciphering Home Through Hajra Waheed's Archival Investigations, Sarah Fox (Carleton University, Canada)

4. Re-creating the Place of Home in Remedios Varo's La creación de las aves, Nadia Garcia (University College Cork, Ireland)

5. Identity and (Not) Belonging: Art and the Politics of British-ness in 1980s Britain, Imogen Racz (Coventry University, UK)

6. Aftershocks and (Un)belongings: Reflecting on Home Strike, Alexandra Kokoli (Middlesex University London, UK) and Basia Sliwinska (University of the Arts London, UK)

7. Crossing literal and conceptual borders: Nepantla practices of the borderlands in performance projects by Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Eva Zetterman (University of Gothenburg, Sweden)

8. Boundaries and belonging in Kazakh art: a case study of Red Butterfly by Almagul Menlibayeva, Aliya de Tiesenhausen (Independent Scholar, UK)

9. 'Arrival city' versus 'dysfunctional nation': Exhibiting the 'migration crisis' at the 2016 Venice Architectural Biennale, Joel Robinson (The Open University, UK)

Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"This is a wonderfully curated collection of essays. The range of artistic material is rich, and the thematic focus on art's unique potential to weave together experiences of migration, borders, homemaking and belonging is remarkably consistent, as is the authors' innovative use of feminist and transnational perspectives to foreground female artists and engage with their works in close readings that are both intimate and trenchant." --Anne Ring Petersen, Professor of Modern Culture & Contemporary Art at the Department of Arts & Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

"Whether they are from Cyprus, Palestine, Spain, Kazakhstan or elsewhere, artists who have relocated often make works that not only invoke the idea of a lost home but also an impetus to achieve a sense of belonging in their new places of abode. This orientation, so important in contemporary art, is explored eloquently and compellingly in Art, Borders and Belonging." --Brenda Schmahmann, Professor and SARChI Chair in South African Art & Visual Culture, University of Johannesburg, South Africa

From the Publisher