Dataset: Art

How do visual artists use the power of story to document and reflect the immigrant experience? Using a variety of artistic media, including painting, performance, moving image, installation, sculpture, illustration, and photography, these artists looks at many different elements that make up the life of an immigrant.

Entries

Migrating Architectures (2019)

January 26, 2022

“Migrating Architectures” art and research project analyses the process of space formation as a transformation of spatial conceptions from both the countries of origin and… Read more

13 Artists On: Immigration

January 26, 2022

Art doesn’t just reflect the world — it engages with it. Some 10 million to 15 million undocumented immigrants currently live in the United States,… Read more

Lawrence Jacobs – The Migration Series (2015-2022)

January 26, 2022

Explore the lasting cultural, political, and societal impact of the Great Migration through the life and work of artist Jacob Lawrence. Browse all 60 panels… Read more

Maggi Hambling (2016)

January 26, 2022

Entitled 2016, the year it was made, this painting depicts a golden boat sinking below the surface of the ocean. The composition’s central subject is… Read more

A WALK THROUGH TATE MODERN ON THE THEME OF MIGRATION (2021)

January 26, 2022

At a time when the borders between lands are continually being disputed, what does it mean to move across countries, to change nationalities and to… Read more

Crossings: community and refuge | British Museum (2021-2023)

January 25, 2022

Engaging audiences in questions of identity, belonging and sharing our world, A British Museum Spotlight Loan Crossings: community and refuge will tour the Lampedusa cross… Read more

Crossing Lines, Constructing Home: Displacement and Belonging in Contemporary Art | Harvard Art Museums (2020)

January 25, 2022

What does it mean to be displaced from culture and home? What are the historical contexts for understanding our contemporary moment? How does an artist’s… Read more

When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art (2021)

January 25, 2022

Migration—the movement of people and cultures—is a story of who we are and how we got here over time. Millions of people move for myriad… Read more

Worlds without Ends: Stories around Borders

February 5, 2021

WWE opens a visual dialogue on the impact of borders on individuals and communities.  The twelve participating artists are drawn from different regional traditions and… Read more

Near Strangers San Antonio 300

October 24, 2020

An installation by Proyecto Diáspora. Considering San Antonio’s Tricentennial and Luminaria Contemporary Arts Festival as SA’s cultural connector between artists, audiences and the world, Near Strangers San Antonio… Read more

Public Secret Society of Conceptual Migrants

October 24, 2020

Public Secret Society of Conceptual Migrants is an intervention project created by artist Patty Ortiz as part of her continuing performance series Work Won’t Kill… Read more

From the Other Side

October 23, 2020

A 3/9 – channel video installation by Argentinian artist Gabriela Golder. The video installation focuses on the topical issue of migration, zooming in on migrants’… Read more

Immigrant Art: A new perspective on the U.S. melting pot

August 26, 2020

By Guillermina Zabala Guillermina Zabala is a multidisciplinary artist and educator whose art examines the intersection between the individual and their social-political-cultural environment. Her works… Read more

The Power of Cartoons in Global Education: An Interview with Christian Clark

July 27, 2020

Conducted by Sumita S. Chakravarty  A former cartoonist and two-time Emmy-award winning writer for the Children’s Television Workshop flagship show, Sesame Street, Christian Clark works… Read more

Mapping Art in Times of Protest

July 24, 2020

— by Pamela Vasquez Torres Pamela Vazquez Torres is a Mexican art historian living in the Twin Cities since 2017. She is driven by the… Read more

Notes about Home… in Minnesota

June 5, 2020

by Pamela Vázquez Torres          The dignity of a safe home shouldn’t be determined by color of skin or country of birth. The ongoing social movement… Read more

Artwork: Artist Cosimo Cavallaro Builds a Wall of Cotija Cheese at the Mexican Border (2020)

November 11, 2019

From ARTNET.com: Artist Cosimo Cavallaro is helping President Donald Trump build his controversial border wall between the US and Mexico—but his barrier is constructed not from steel… Read more

Artwork: Rael San Fratello, Teeter-Totter Wall (2019)

November 11, 2019

From ARTNET.com: “The art project, which has been a media sensation, is the work of architecture studio Rael San Fratello, a partnership between San Jose State interior design faculty member… Read more

Database/Community: Syria Cultural Index

November 11, 2019

Berlin based non-profit CoCulture is working with the Syrian diaspora artistic community to build connections and cohesions to provide creative outlets and structure to a… Read more

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Exhibit on MAss Migration

November 11, 2019

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is featuring an exhibit on mass migration by Richard Mosse, a documentary photographer from Ireland. The exhibit runs… Read more

On Venezuelan Migration: Sebatián Llovera’s Non-Linear Trajectories

October 28, 2019

by Elvira Blanco By mid-2019, the number of Venezuelans to migrate since the beginning of the Chavista regime in 1999 has reached four million. The… Read more

Art in the UAE: the exhibitions and installations to look out for in 2018

January 28, 2018

This solo show by Venezuelan artist Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck takes up the question of refugees, arguing that human rights NGOs and charities have developed into a… Read more

For Migrants headed North, The things they carried to the end

January 28, 2018

Strong political art is tough to make.  So, when it turns up, it’s worth a look. In an era of “great, great walls” and “bad… Read more

Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter

January 28, 2018

Bringing together projects by architects, designers, and artists, working in a range of mediums and scales, that respond to the complex circumstances brought about by… Read more

Ankledeep by Lubaina Himid

January 28, 2018

Ankledeep was completed in 1991 in Preston, where Himid lives and works. It is part of a series entitled Revenge: A Masque in Five Tableaux that the artist… Read more

Culture Strike: Art in Trump’s America

May 22, 2017

“Migration is beautiful.” These three words give dual meaning to Oakland artist Favianna Rodriguez’s daffodil-colored print of a stained-glass-esque butterfly, the wings of which are… Read more

New artistic collaboration reflects history of migration

May 22, 2017

Culture and community combined this past week for a unique artist-in-residence program that brought a renowned Mexican artist to downtown Phoenix. Betsabeé Romero, a contemporary… Read more

People on the move: Beauty and Struggle in Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series

December 8, 2016

More than 75 years ago, a young artist named Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) set to work on an ambitious 60-panel series portraying the Great Migration, the… Read more

Transborder Immigrant Tool: Transition

November 27, 2016

Almost five years ago, Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab released the first iteration of the Transborder Immigrant Tool (TBT), a mobile-phone technology that provides… Read more

Jesse Chun’s ‘On Paper’

October 17, 2016

On Paper: Visual Artist Jesse Chun explores visual rhetoric involved in identity and mobility through an appropriation and transformation of the familiar marks contained in… Read more

But a Storm Is Blowing from Paradise: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa

August 30, 2016

But a Storm Is Blowing from Paradise gathers artwork from different contemporary artists such as Nadia Kaabi-Linke and Kader Attia who aim to explore issues of moving and… Read more

Comic: Myanmar’s Rohingya Refugees

August 2, 2016

Author/illustrator Erik Thurman is an award-nominated creator who specializes in long-form comics journalism and nonfiction comics about current events. On August 1st, 2016, the political… Read more

Emigration Museum in Gdynia, Poland

July 14, 2016

“The history of departures from the Polish lands is hundreds of years old. People traveled to different parts of the world for sustenance, in search… Read more

Francis Alÿs films children’s games in refugee camps in northern Iraq

April 7, 2016

“The artist Francis Alÿs is exploring the idea of a film about children playing in the refugee camps he visited in northern Iraq at the… Read more

Marvel Comics’ secret weapon is a woman named Sana Amanat

February 28, 2016

On the last day of New York Comic Con, Sana Amanat begins the annual Women of Marvel panel with what is now a yearly tradition.… Read more

Ai Weiwei Reveals Berlin Installation via Instagram

February 15, 2016

From an article by Lauren Said-Moorhouse for CNN Style: “Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has covered a Berlin landmark with thousands of refugee life jackets for… Read more

Ingrid Butler’s ‘Migration’

December 16, 2015

It was hard for Ingrid Butler not to feel helpless whenever she heard or read about the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Syria, trying… Read more

Banksy uses Steve Jobs to highlight Refugee Crisis

December 16, 2015

“Banksy has revealed a new artwork, sprayed on a wall in the Calais refugee camp called “the  Jungle,” intended to address negative attitudes towards the… Read more

Migrating Lives – Vidas Migratorias

October 18, 2015

“Migrating Lives/Vidas Migratorias features handmade books filled with personal stories of migration, many of them by unaccompanied minors who have arrived in the United States… Read more

On Migration, Identity, and Borders

October 18, 2015

Gerald Machona is a Zimbabwean born visual artist, whose work engages with issues of migration, deeply investigating the social terrains where identity, space, social hierarchies… Read more

State of Exception: An Art Exhibition

October 18, 2015

Objects left behind by undocumented migrants on their journey into the United States, including backpacks, water bottles, and border restrains, form the basis of this… Read more

Lampedusa Review

October 18, 2015

a brave excursion into the dark waters of mass migration  Anders Lustgarten’s drama boldly contrasts the lives of a fisherman retrieving the bodies of refugees… Read more

No Human Being is Illegal

October 18, 2015

“Give me your tired, your poor; Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . . The enormous disparity between the eloquent promise of the… Read more

The Oakland Museum of California’s Who is Oakland? Exhibit

October 18, 2015

“Oakland is a city in flux. As people from San Francisco and elsewhere migrate to Oakland in hordes, the physical and social architecture seems to… Read more

Platanos Y Collard Greens

October 18, 2015

Written by David Lamb, directed by Summer Hill Seven and currently staged by Doni Comas, Platanos Y Collard Greens debuted to sold-out audiences on June… Read more

Left Coast: California Political Art

October 18, 2015

Detail from “And The Earth Did Not Swallow Them,” mural (2015). CUNY Graduate Center: ‘The title is lifted from Tomas Rivera’s book entitled Ey No… Read more

Undocumented Apparel Series

October 18, 2015

Julio Salgado’s ‘Undocu-Queers’ poster series provides the name, face, and story of a person at the intersection of two much-commoditized demographics, that of queer and… Read more

Barbed Wire Stories

October 18, 2015

 Inside Witness is a comic drawn and narrated by Stephen and Clio Reese Sady. The setting is a family detention center in Artesia, New Mexico, a… Read more