Understanding Displacement Aesthetics

'This groundbreaking volume critically engages with debates on art and displacement, while also advancing vital reflections on ethical practices in museums working with artists of refugee backgrounds - offering rich insights for scholars and students in the intersecting fields of cultural history, art history, and curatorial studies.' --Professor Anne Ring Petersen, University of Copenhagen

With the rise of humanitarianism and international refugee laws in the 20th 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 longer history of visual motifs and tropes and their ongoing presence in the contemporary world. Highlighting displaced artists in contemporary contexts, the book explores the barriers they face and their aesthetic outcomes. Language, identity and labour are identified as critical factors informing how art is made, curated, collected and understood by the public.

Advancing the new concept of 'displacement aesthetics' - the negotiation of representation, lived experience and institutions - the interdisciplinary research underpinning this book provides a major intervention into the fields of cultural history, art history, and museum studies. Combining archival research, analysis of art, and curatorial research with artists and museums, Understanding displacement aesthetics presents new insights into the role of art and culture in mediating this pressing social and political issue in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Professor Ana Carden-Coyne is Director of the Centre for the Cultural History of War at the University of Manchester

Chrisoula Lionis is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Manchester and co-Director of Artists for Artists (AfA)

Angeliki Roussou is Teaching Fellow in Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Edinburgh

Charles Green is Professor of Contemporary Art in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne