Understanding displacement aesthetics : History, art, and museums

Abstract

With the rise of humanitarianism and the international refugee regime in the twentieth century, visual representations of refugees and their forced displacement permeated the cultural sphere. Understanding displacement aesthetics offers a groundbreaking analysis of the role of visual culture, art, and art museums in shaping ideas about people forced to flee. The book identifies the refugee as a cultural figure, analysing the history of visual tropes across multiple visual arenas and their endurance in the present day. Addressing contemporary contexts, the book investigates how displaced artists face distinct barriers that manifest aesthetic outcomes. Language, identity, and labour also appear as critical factors informing how art is made, curated, collected, and publicly understood. Advancing the new concept of ‘displacement aesthetics’ – a negotiation between representation, lived experience, and institutions – this book offers a major interdisciplinary analysis that intervenes in cultural history, art history, and museum studies. Combining archival research, analysis of art, and collaborative co-curation with artists and museums, the book presents new insights into the role of art and culture in mediating this pressing social and political issue in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.