Imagine(ing) migration.The aesthetics of borders and resistance by SOAS MA Migration and Diaspora.
What is migration? Is this the “age of migration”? What is diaspora? What challenges do diasporic communities bring to modern political constructions such as the nation-state, national “imagined” communities, citizenship and their associated metaphysics of sedentarism?
As part of the MA Migration and Diaspora Studies at SOAS, students were encouraged to use their creativity to interrogate these questions of the world around them and also far away. This exhibition, curated by students on the course, showcases the resulting artworks, a wide-ranging and wonderfully provoking collection ranging from video, collage and illustration to poetry and diary-writing.
These pieces show how artistic process(es) can meaningfully inform, enrich and/or shape our ethnographic research, to think beyond “traditional” ethnographic methods to challenge how we see reality. Together, these works stretch the canon and reveal ways in which we understand the materiality of objects, spaces and movements, using creative methods.
Curators: Ruba Salih, Flora Laney-Hubbard, Mahali Mackintosh, Susanna Owusu Twumwah, Aisling Emma Watton
A live discussion with the contributors will take place on Zoom on Saturday 20 March, 11:00 – 11:50 UTC. Find the papers’ abstracts and a link to join the live discussion here.
Lillian Bankiyan-Monfard:
Disability as a lens, subverting Google mapsNicola Banks:
Mobility of Domestic Workers in Lebanon: A Discussion on ‘Stuckedness’Susie Brand: Waiting time Sigrid Corry: We are not dead, we are waiting to live Helen Davey: Mapping space, movement and isolation – the journeys of Ukraine’s Internally Displaced People Charlotte Dick: The Obituary Sophie Falshaw: The sights and sounds of Lye Apsara Gurung: Sense of self Hannah Hames: Sending me home Parwana Haydar: Disposability within western academia Jacob Heath: If not time, what can the Empire Clock tell us today? Yarin: A change in audience Holly Hudson: 296 Ardalan Jaf: Internal effects of the asylum claim process Zhanhui Jiang: No titles – The exiled body as the revolutionised human Isheanesu Kwaramba: Nai Chipo Flora Laney-Hubbard: “Fake” passport Ghadeer Najjar: Invisible borders – Life on Liminal Spaces within a City, the Case of Jerusalem Samantar Osman: Floodwater-Qardho or I was drowning, I wasn’t Susanna Owusu Twumwah: Empowered women in Italy- The magazine of my dreams Phoebe Parsons: ‘I Stopped These’ Clara Schade-Poulsen: Border Materialities – (In)visibilities at the Austrian-Hungarian frontier Eden Tse: Architectures of Coexistences Shabazz Ullah: It’s not always jokes Lenise Williams: Transnationalism and migrant generational concepts of home Yidi Zheng: Mixing Spaces – “Beijing Natives” vs “Waidi bi”