Migration has been at the forefront of contemporary art, occupying a central place in its theory, history and criticism for more than three decades. In a way, it is consubstantial with the very idea of contemporaneity as a global, post-colonial condition, in which the circulation of ideas, people and objects have often been highlighted. Migratory routes, diasporic cultures, displacement and disruption, hybrid identities, creolization and cultural translation, as well as the cosmopolitan imaginary have become mainstream topics of art exhibitions, art historical treaties and curatorial discourses over the past decades. Nevertheless, an abrupt shift of perspective has taken place in European and US politics lately, where new, exclusionary forms of nationalism and populism are threatening the fabric of democracy as a global worldview predicated on diversity, tolerance and multicultural inclusion. It situates the migrant ontologically at a loss in the world, stigmatized by non-belonging. Therefore, the migrant appears as a double displaced being, ousted “temporally no less than spatially” (Ranajit Guha). While the precarious social condition of migrants, as well as the damnation and zombification of the migrant (especially in the form of war refugees), have also been present in mainstream curatorial discourses over the years, they have been certainly less explored in art historical scholarship.

The present conference aims to explore the representation and critical analysis of migration in contemporary art in the changing conditions of the present day global political turmoil, with competing ideologies clashing in popular media and violent conflicts erupting in many parts of the world, while the climate catastrophe is looming. The cry that “There is no Planet B” seems not to have been heard, and the notion of “home” has become increasingly difficult to define and defend, let alone to reimagine. How can visual arts contribute to the visualization of exclusion and at the same time how can they counter the stigmatizing effects of such representational practices? What forms and techniques of artistic production are more suitable for engaging politically with such topics? What role can contemporary art play in a cultural environment characterized by disjunction and opposition, as well as in our turbulent and increasingly violent social lives?