January 2017 Hungry Venezuelans flood Brazilian towns, as threat of mass migration looms THE WASHINGTON POST JANUARY 1 The Islamization of Germany in 2016 GATESTONE JANUARY 2 Over 8,000 migrants ‘disappeared’ off Swiss radar in 2016 RT JANUARY 3
Facebook, social networks being used in human smuggling
People smugglers are increasingly relying on social media platforms, particularly Facebook, to find their customers. Europol’s European Migrant Smuggling Center (EMSC) last year identified 1,150 suspicious social media accounts – a staggering rise from the 148 accounts it was watching in 2015. The trend, which is also is reflected in other parts of the world, …
European citizens want information on migration – not higher walls
Despite being bombarded with headlines about the “migrant crisis” facing Europe, little is really known about how European citizens perceive and experience migration in their daily lives. As part of our ongoing research we’ve found that rather than linking “irregular” migration with fears of terrorism, EU citizens have a more nuanced position on border security. The people …
Phones are now indispensable for refugees
SOMETIMES Hekmatullah, a 32-year-old Afghan, has to choose between food and connectivity. “I need to stay in touch with my wife back home,” he says, sitting in a grubby tent in the Oinofyta migrant camp, near Athens. Because Wi-Fi rarely works there, he has to buy mobile-phone credit. And that means he and his fellow …
US border agents checking Facebook profiles, lawyer says
Should what’s on your Facebook page be a factor in determining whether you’re allowed to re-enter the United States? That’s a question to ponder in the wake of President Donald Trump’s ban on immigration that began on Friday. Border patrol agents are checking the Facebook accounts of people who are being held in limbo for approval to …
In Rome, Violent Eviction of Migrants ‘Touched a Nerve’
The gardens by Piazza Venezia in the middle of Rome are normally used as a rest stop by tired tourists. In recent weeks, they have instead become home to weary asylum seekers, evicted from a building in Rome that they had illegally occupied for years. At dawn on Monday, the police came to evict the …
The Digital Footprint of Europe’s Refugees
Migrants leaving their homes for a new country often carry a smartphone to communicate with family that may have stayed behind and to help search for border crossings, find useful information about their journey or search for details about their destination. The digital footprints left by online searches can provide insight into the movement of migrants as they transit …
‘Far-Right Hipsters’ Are Crowdfunding To Send Migrants Back To Africa
Some young European far right-wingers are so fed up with migrants reaching the continent’s shores that they’ve decided to take matters into their own hands. The group is raising money to run its very own border patrol mission in the waters separating Libya and Italy. The Identitarian Movement (known as IB) tries to appeal to its cohorts by …
DHS adds social media to immigration files
The Department of Homeland Security announced Sept. 18 that it was adding social media and other public-facing information to its immigration records. The move has generated alarm among privacy activists and generated a flurry of comments in the normally sleepy public docket. Essentially, DHS announced that it was redefining what constitutes an official immigration file, expanding the scope of …
Zimbabwe created a new ministry to monitor social media. But most Zimbabweans don’t want government monitoring.
In a highly anticipated reshuffling of cabinet appointments last week, Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, created a new ministry of “Cyber Security, Threat Detection and Mitigation,” to be led by former finance minister Patrick Chinamasa. The government claims the ministry was created because of growing abuse of social media, including cyberbullying. But observers claim that the real reason is to clamp …
The refugee crisis captured in haunting detail using infrared cameras
The Irish artist spent two years capturing the journeys of migrants into Europe using the camera, which can detect a human body from 30km and identify an individual from 6.3km. As the equipment is subject to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, Mosse hired lawyers to obtain an export document for each trip. “The camera was designed …
Last refuge: the online communities of lost migrants
The plan was for Musaab to go first, and later, once he was given status as a refugee, his wife and son would join him through the United Nations’ family reunion programme. In early August 2014, he boarded a flight to Algeria (which, at the time, was still granting visas on arrival to Syrians with …
November 2017 Newsletter
In a Ted Talk, Chris Milk calls virtual reality the “ultimate empathy machine” and he is not the only one who has taken note of the possibilities this technology holds; possibilities that non-interactive media such as traditional cinema or fine art cannot offer. The immigrant experience is one that is a part of most American …
List of academic conferences on migration (2016-2017)
2016–17 “MIGRATION AND COMMUNICATION FLOWS: RETHINKING BORDERS, CONFLICT AND IDENTITY THROUGH THE DIGITAL” November 2-3 2017 – Bilbao, Spain “We are faced with a crisis of humanity, and the only exit from this crisis is to recognize our growing interdependence as a species and to find new ways to live together in solidarity and cooperation, …
Trump US-Mexico Border Wall Design Proposals
Here is a collection of some of the design submissions for the borders meant to divide Mexico and the U.S.A, providing visual references for the architecture of borders. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/05/522712279/photos-the-many-possible-shapes-of-trumps-border-wall
October 2017 Newsletter
Mohsin Hamid’s migration tale in Booker shortlist
The Pakistani-born Mohsin Hamid’s fourth novel, “Exit West,” takes the current Middle Eastern migrant crisis and injects a wizardry, an allegorical urgency, that declares this book’s intention to be art. In an unnamed city about to be wrecked by war — you will think Mosul or Aleppo — two students, Nadia and Saeed, begin a …
Why migrants need social citizenship
Prominent political philosophers — including David Miller at Nuffield College, Oxford, and Joseph Carens at the University of Toronto — outline an account of “social membership” in receiving societies. This process unfolds over five to 10 years of work, everyday life, and the development of attachments. As Carens writes in Who Should Get In?(2003), after a period of years, …
UNHCR steps up efforts towards alternatives to detention in Libya and solutions for vulnerable refugees
UNHCR is currently negotiating with the Libyan authorities the establishment of an open reception centre that would allow refugees and asylum seekers freedom of movement, giving priority to the most vulnerable among them. In this reception centre, UNHCR could provide registration, accommodation, food, social services, counselling and support to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, …
‘A Child Is A Child’ – Unicef brings children to the fore in new migrant campaign from FCB and Rankin
FCB Inferno has become the go-to UK agency for what we might call ’cause’ advertising and now it’s launching ‘A Child Is A Child’ for Unicef UK, directed by Rankin. The film highlights the plight of children uprooted by war, poverty and disaster and urges people to see past the refugee and migrant labels and …
‘It symbolises a lack of integration’ Fury as anti-migration ad condemns burka in poster
Posters have appeared in railway stations around the country which feature a woman in a burka with the slogan: “Uncontrolled naturalisation? No to facilitated naturalisation”. The poster was commissioned by a group of politicians working against the vote, led by Andreas Glarner of the right-wing People’s Party. National Councillor of the Zurich Canton Rosmarie Quadranti …
Norway And Belgium Become Latest Nations To Plead With Migrants To Stay At Home
Norway has taken out a front-page advertisement in a major Afghan newspaper warning would-be migrants that potential asylum seekers “will be returned by force”, while the Belgian asylum secretary has written directly to migrants asking them not to come. “Afghans without need for asylum coming the #Arctic_route from #Russia, risk being sent to #Kabul. 500 returned …
Culture Strike: Art in Trump’s America
“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 appropriately filled with human likenesses. The pro-migration butterfly is just one of the many distinctive images used throughout the artist’s transformational body of politically and socially entwined works. FIND MORE: …
New artistic collaboration reflects history of migration
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 artist from Mexico City, collaborated with other artists from throughout the Valley during her stay in downtown Phoenix. Together, they used their cultural experiences as inspiration for a temporary public …
News Articles: 2016
January 2016 DENMARK’S MIXED MESSAGES FOR REFUGEES NPR JANUARY 31 ONCE MIGRANTS REACH EUROPE, COUNTRIES FACE INTEGRATION CHALLENGE NPR JANUARY 29 LONG JOURNEY HOME FOR MIGRANT WORKERS IN WAGE BATTLES SHANGHAI DAILY JANUARY 28
Migration Policy Institute PRO
MPI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, think tank dedicated to the study of the movement of people worldwide. Find their Vimeo channel: MPI
World Press Photo Contest 2016: Reporting Europe’s Refugee Crisis
World Press Photo Contest 2016 View Russian photographer Sergey Ponomarev’s collection of winning images from the 59th World Press Photo Contest. See all: world press photo
People on the move: Beauty and Struggle in Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series
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 movement between the World Wars of over a million African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North in search of a better life. Today, the exhibition organized by …
A conversation with artist Jesse Chun
— Conducted by Sumita Chakravarty The following conversation was inspired by an exhibition by Jesse Chun in which bureaucratic documents of travel are central to artworks that unpack their varied meanings. such documents are at once material objects and carriers of fraught signification in the contemporary world. Chun literally peels back the layers to bring to …
List of academic conferences on migration (2013-2015)
2015 “MIGRATION, MEDIA AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE,” 25-26 NOVEMBER 2015, UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY, BARCELONA “TRANSIENT MIGRATION IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC: IDENTITIES, SOCIAL NETWORKS AND MEDIA,” 12 NOVEMBER 2015, RMIT UNIVERSITY, MELBOURNE “MANAGING BORDERS,” 3-4 APRIL 2015, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK “GENDER, CULTURE & MIGRATION,” 6-7 MARCH 2015, UNIVERSITY OF GDANSK, POLAND 2014 “DETERMINANTS OF INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION,” 23–25 …
List of academic articles on migration (1981 to 2016)
2011-2016 Scott Blinder and William L. Allen. “Constructing Immigrants: Portrayals of Migrant Groups in British National Newspapers, 2010–2012.” International Migration Review. Spring 2016. Shepard, Mark. “Minor Urbanism: Everyday Entanglements of Technology and Urban Life”Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 2013 (v 27, no. 4), 483 – 494 BECK, Ulrich AND DANIEL LEVY, “COSMOPOLITANIZED NATIONS: RE-IMAGINING COLLECTIVITY IN WORLD RISK …
List of academic books on migration (1890s to 2012)
2011-12 CELIK, IPEK A. IN PERMANENT CRISIS: ETHNICITY IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN MEDIA AND CINEMA. ANN ARBOR: UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS, 2015. MARTIN, Susan. A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2012. MOORE, KERRY, BERNHARD GROSS AND TERRY THREADGOLD. EDS. MIGRATIONS AND THE MEDIA. NY: PETER LANG, 2012. JONES, Amelia. SEEING DIFFERENTLY: A HISTORY AND THEORY OF IDENTIFICATION AND THE VISUAL …
Fire at Sea
— by Andrea Avidad and Sumita Chakravarty “The reaction of which man has been dispossessed can be replaced only by belief. Only belief in the world can reconnect man to what he sees and hears. The cinema must film, not the world, but belief in the world –this is the power of the modern cinema” …
Camp Code: How to navigate a refugee settlement
Claudia Martínez is an independent researcher who articulated brief sketches describing the spatial and material organization of refugee camps in the Palestinian camp of Bourj Al Shamali, situated high on a hill in southern Lebanon Find the article here
The Night-Side of Hospitals: Migrant doctors and the medical system
Anna Harris and photographer Thomas Fuller undertook an ethnographic study of migrant doctors in Melbourne hospitals, documenting regulatory and cultural barriers present in the mobility of healthcare professionals. Find the article here
Transborder Immigrant Tool: Transition
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 poetry to immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border while leading them to water caches in the Southern California desert. Creative writer Leila Nadir discusses the role of art and activism with Ricardo …
Article: George Lipsitz, The Meaning of Memory (1986)
American Studies scholar George Lipsitz’s article The Meaning of Memory: Family, Class, and Ethnicity in Early Network Television Programs (1986) examines how the “historical specificity of early network television programs led their creators into dangerous ideological terrain”. “The presence of this subgenre of ethnic, working-class situation comedies on television network schedules seems to run contrary …
Publication: Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1890)
How the Other Half Lives (1890) was a pioneering work of photojournalism by Jacob Riis. The publication documented the poor living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. “Nothing would probably have shocked their original owners more than the idea of their harboring a promiscuous crowd; for they were the decorous homes of …
Article: Edward Said, Between Worlds (1998)
Edward Said makes sense of his life. “The day in early September 1951 when my mother and father deposited me at the gates of that school and then immediately left for the Middle East was probably the most miserable of my life.” https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v20/n09/edward-said/between-worlds
Jesse Chun’s ‘On Paper’
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 immigration documents. On Paper was shown from July until October 2016 at the Spencer Brownstone Gallery in New York City. Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist Jesse Chun explores interdependencies between aspects of identity, …
Coriolis Effect: Migration & Memory
Coriolis Effect extends its original curatorial intention of tracing cultural and historical exchanges in the Indian Ocean Worlds, and invites speculations on ideas of movement, displacement and the formation of new and informal models of 21st century communities. The artists selected for the residency represent a diverse geographical spread, and have approached the project concept …
Musicians in a Refugee Camp in France Record ‘The Calais Sessions’
From The New York Times: “I am happy, like a myna/Life in a caravan, thinking about my friends/Let’s go to the garden,” go the upbeat lyrics from “Khandahar,” a poem first written in English and then translated to Farsi by two Afghan sisters, ages 9 and 12, who were living in a trailer in the sprawling …
‘Great Migration’ films highlight transformative power of African-American communities
“Yes, individuals make up communities, and individuals may lead organizations, but it’s really rooted in communities,” said Massiah. “In some ways, institutions are official ways of recognizing communities.” A selection of four films exploring the transformative power of African American communities in Philadelphia will be touring in different libraries and recreations throughout the city, …
British Journal of Photography: The Migration Issue
Putting a face to the greatest humanitarian crisis of out time http://www.bjp-online.com/2016/08/editors-introduction-the-migration-issue-bjp-7851/
Refugees Caught Up in Child Prostitution
Journalist Daniel Howden explores the rise of prostitution among underaged refugees who are settled in Greece. A two-part investigation for Refugees Deeply that reveals a critical situation which mixes the Middle East Crisis and the economic recession in the E.U. “They have got mixed up in a crisis that has nothing to do with them and has …
A Yemeni Teenager’s Trip to Estonia, by Way of Guantánamo
New York Times reporter Charlie Savage describes the impact of an article he wrote about an ex-Guantanamo detainee – on readers, the subject and the writer. The journalist interviews Ahmed Abdul Qader, a Yemeni man who was imprisoned on charges of terrorism for a period of 13 years during Bush’s presidency. After his release, he found refuge in …
But a Storm Is Blowing from Paradise: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa
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 migration in the Middle East and North Africa. Exhibition on view at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City running until October 5th, 2016 Find the Exhibition Overview …
In the shadow of Trump’s Walls: Peter van Agtmael Photos
Photographer Peter van Agtmael, in collaboration with CNN and represented by Magnum Photos, portrays the U.S. – Mexico border in South Texas. The reportage frames the interaction between U.S. Republican Candidate Donald Trump and Pete Saenz, major of Laredo, a Texan City whose population is 96% Latino. Find the reportage along the photographic work in the …
Chantal Akerman’s ‘From the Other Side’: Invisible Migrants
Director: Chantal Akerman 2002 “Sometimes the absence is stronger than the presence” One of the striking features of Chantal Akerman’s documentary, ‘From the Other Side,’ is that so often the faces of Mexicans captured in the film are blurry, as if to underscore their anonymity and invisibility in terms of the long history …
Comic: Myanmar’s Rohingya Refugees
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 comics/cartoons website The Nib published his comic on the Myanmar Rohingya refugee crisis, which can be read in full here.
Mapping Migrant Journeys
– by Sumita Chakravarty There is a kind of matter-of-factness in the voices we hear in Bouchra Khalili’s The Mapping Journey Project, a series of eight videos that is currently installed in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Each video is projected on a screen and as we move from …
Emigration Museum in Gdynia, Poland
“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 of freedom, or for a different life. After Poland regained its independence, this situation remained unchanged. The journey was tackled on foot, by rail, aboard ships or – later – …
The Architecture of Displacement
More than 500 children live in the refugee camp at Calais, France, which is today a growing town at the mouth of the Chunnel. The majority of these children are unaccompanied by parents or guardians. Life in the so-called “Jungle” is painful and tentative for them: According to Help Refugees, 129 children could not be …
The Emigration Museum
– Sumita Chakravarty A brand-new and impressive Emigration Museum in Gydnia, Poland overlooks the Baltic Sea, conjuring up for the visitor the scene of countless departures of Poles for other shores over the past three centuries. As the museum’s brochure informs us, 20 million Poles are currently living abroad, and the Polish diaspora is the …
MSNBC Special: Damned for Trying
This project is by MSNBC in partnership with Magnum Photos The largest flow of modern African migration funnels through a single country — Libya. Coming from the south, migrants flee the vestiges of wars that have left entire nations in ruin. From the east, they escape a life of indefinite military servitude and violent conflict. …
Hamsa (2016)
“Hamsa is a documentary and educational platform with an audacious goal: motivate viewers to alleviate the Syrian refugee crisis. The short documentary highlights one family’s struggles after reaching Germany, and allows those watching to put a face to the global issues. Hamsa is a Syrian refugee and mother of three who migrated with her husband from …
Syrian Refugee’s Viral Story Found Him a Home
“Mohsen’s story went viral after he was filmed being tripped up by a camerawoman as he fled police near the Hungarian border with Serbia last September. He was carrying his youngest son Zaid, then 7, in his arms at the time, and the two fell sprawling on the ground. Footage of the incident helped bring …
A New Documentary Takes us Inside Australia’s Refugee Detainment Camps
“Over the last few years, the Australian government has been leaning hard into an anti-refugee plan known as “the Pacific Solution.” Created to stop the arrival of boats filled with asylum seekers from countries like Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, the Pacific Solution is a program that reads like something out of Donald Trump’s playbook: …
What the Refugee Crisis tells us about Journalism
“Take any crisis that makes the headlines — the flow of refugees in the Middle East, Europe and the Horn of Africa; outbreaks of deadly or devastating viruses such as Ebola or Zika; drought emergencies in Ethiopiaand Malawi. Does journalism help to explain them? Or solve them? These questions were asked at the Polis conference of the London School of Economics on 21 April. The …
Refugee social media doesn’t always reflect reality
“The Guardian ran an interesting article about Gambian refugees, many of whom are disappointed to discover their lives aren’t much better in Europe than they were at home. One small detail about these struggling refugees that stuck out to me in the piece: Migrants, worried they will disappoint their families back home, don’t post about their struggles …
Immigration and National Security: Moving Beyond 9/11
Two reports from the Center for Immigration Studies are discussed; Janice Kepharts’s “Immigration & Terrorism: Moving Beyond the 9/11 Staff Report on Terrorist Travel” and James R. Edwards’ “Keeping Extremist Out: The History of Ideological Exclusion and Need For Its Revival.” Both reports are centered on efforts to prevent further attacks on American soil and …
The Value of Knitting for an Afghan Refugee
The short documentary Stitches is the story of a man who finds peace in knitting —after establishing a life in exile as an Afghan refugee during the Soviet–Afghan War. The subject is the filmmaker Abdullah Abo Jassin’s uncle, who writes, “His story connects in a way with all what my family has been through over …
Working From Home – A Photo Essay
These migrant workers travel wherever they can find employment. Some just for a season before returning home, others from city to city or country to country constantly looking for work. The photojournalist Irving Villegas has been documenting the lives of seasonal workers in different countries Germany Asparagus season Every year about 270,000 workers come to …
Migration and the Culture of Anguish
By Sumita Chakravarty Lotte’s mother: How did you know it was me? Nejat Aksu: You are the saddest person here. In his film, The Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite, 2008), Turkish-German filmmaker, Fatih Akin foregrounds pain, loss, and the pathos of brief encounters through three intertwined narratives that touch each other, one might …
Francis Alÿs films children’s games in refugee camps in northern Iraq
“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 end of February. The Belgian-born, Mexico City-based artist was on his first research trip to the region, where he filmed and took photographs of children playing games such as marbles …
Immigrant Nation
“Immigrant Nation explores our connections to immigration, past and present, through storytelling. At the heart of the project is a simple idea: the U.S. is a nation shaped by immigration, and most families have personal story about it. These stories, whether they happened generations ago or quite recently, are not often shared. We want to bring them …
A visual guide to 75 years of major refugee crises around the world
“The conflict in Syria has now displaced 12 million people, creating the largest wave of refugees to hit Europe since World War II. But in the last half century, other events around the world have pushed even larger numbers of people to flee war and persecution. Here’s a brief guide to the major refugee events …
Bouchra Khalili: The Mapping Journey Project
Bouchra Khalili: The Mapping Journey Project Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY April 9–August 28, 2016 This exhibition presents, in its entirety, Bouchra Khalili’s The Mapping Journey Project (2008–11), a series of videos that details the stories of eight individuals who have been forced by political and economic circumstances to travel illegally and whose …
The Deadly Journey From Libya’s Migrant Jails
From VICE News: “Desperate to escape conflict and poverty, thousands of migrants and refugees attempt the perilous journey to Europe each year, with many crossing the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa in rubber dinghies and wooden boats. In the wake of the decommissioning of Mare Nostrum, a search and rescue operation run by Italy, the …
Caitlin Moran asks “What is a Refugee?”
Journalist and author Caitlin Moran recently took to her YouTube channel, Caitlin’s Moranifesto, to ask the questions “What is a Refugee?” and “Why should we be supporting them?” “Refugees,” Moran says, “are also preventing themselves from being weaponised in the future. How many people who can’t leave Syria and Afghanistan… will be coerced into joining Isis …
Mediterranea (2015)
MEDITERRANEA by Jonas Carpignano, USA 2015: Ayiva recently left his home in Burkina Faso in search of a way to provide for his sister and his daughter. He takes advantage of his position in an illegal smuggling operation to get himself and his best friend Abas off of the continent. Ayiva adapts to life in …
Migration’s Psychogeographies
If, as Alfred Korzybski famously observed, “The map is not the territory,” what are some alternate ways of exploring our relationship to the areas we traverse and the spaces we occupy? There is by now a vast literature on cartography and map-making as it historically evolved to make possible the ubiquity of maps that we …
Light on the Sea
Light on the Sea: One Woman’s Story from the Front Lines of the Refugee Crisis This documentary takes us to the front lines of the world’s refugee crisis as Neda, a Syrian American, helps refugees coming from boats into Lesbos, Greece. No media spin. No politics. Just people who want to live. Credits: Directed and …
Citizen or Alien?
— by Sumita Chakravarty The U.S. presidential campaign of 2016 has once again brought the issue of migration and citizenship to the forefront of political debate and public discussion. In particular, immigration into the U.S. as a threat to national well-being and economic prosperity is regarded as one of the two major reasons for the …
Fashion Photographer Turns Refugee Crisis Into Offensive High-End Fashion Shoot
“Hungarian fashion photographer Norbert Baksa has come under fire for a refugee-themed fashion photo shoot he conceptualized and shot at the Hungarian border. “Der Migrant,” which features models wearing headscarves and designer duds before a backdrop of barbed wire fences, was released on the photographer’s personal website and Twitter account last week to predictably less-than-stellar reviews. …
Stories of Migration: Contemporary Artists Interpret Diaspora
The George Washington University Museum April 16–September 4, 2016 In this juried and invitational exhibition, forty-four artists share personal and universal stories of migration—from historic events that scattered communities across continents to today’s accounts of migrants and refugees adapting to a new homeland. Co-organized with the Studio Art Quilt Associates and with assistance from GW’s Diaspora …
Documenting the Undocumented: Carceral Architecture and Migrant Bodies with Tings Chak
“The last podcast published on Archipelago is a conversation with Tings Chak, Toronto-based migrant justice organizer (as part of the organization No One Is Illegal for example), as well as a multidisciplinary designer. Tings is about to publish a graphic-essay book entitled Undocumented: The Architecture of Migrant Detention (The Architecture Observer, 2014) that articulates the two aspects of her work as an organizer …
Redesigning Refugee Camps
“’An Alternative Handbook for Refugee Camp Design’ responds to increases in both the number of refugees worldwide and the number of years refugees spend in camps. While not all refugees live in camps, the focus of my research and design proposal is on camp models designed for 20,000 people (as per the UNHCR’s guidelines). Whereas …
Architecture of Remittances
“Problem: How can trends in architecture and urbanization in the daily lives of people respond to the forced migrations in Central America and everywhere through a recognition that they don’t happen in a vacuum but rather stem from root causes that force them? Why are so many people from Central America looking for a better life somewhere …
Forensic Oceanography: The Left-To-Die Boat
“The Forensic Oceanography project was launched in summer 2011 to support a coalition of NGOs demanding accountability for the deaths of migrants in the central Mediterranean Sea while that region was being tightly monitored by the NATO-led coalition intervening in Libya. The efforts were focused on what is now known as the “left-to-die boat” case, in …
The ‘wearable dwelling’ – a coat for refugees that turns into a tent
“Design students have created a coat for refugees that can be reconfigured into a tent or a sleeping bag big enough to hold an adult and a child. The garment, which resembles a three-quarter length puffa jacket with a hood when worn, gives fresh meaning to the term “wearable technology”…” Read more
The Framing of Space in the European Refugee Crisis
“My sister has asked me what my perspective is on the death of thousands of refugees in Europe this summer. Herewith. There is obviously a spatial aspect to the immigration crisis unfolding in Europe. The question is whether there is also an answer to be found in the framing, forming, and allocation of space. Some …
Syrian Refugees Recreate Destroyed Monuments to Always Remember Their Culturally Rich Architecture
“From a vantage point here in Za’atari, a group of Syrian artists have taken it upon themselves to recreate miniature models of the monuments that have been ruined. In efforts to combat the feelings of outrage and helplessness, these painstaking recreations serve as an act of defiance. The original sites may be have been destroyed, …
Architects Create Homes Refugees Can Build Themselves
“Since 2011, over 4 million Syrians have left their homes to avoid the civil war, with roughly 629,000 going to Jordan. A hundred thousand live in refugee camps there, including at the Middle East’s largest camp, the Za’atari. There, over half of the occupants are children, and it’s difficult to educate or train them, according to …
The Problem With Refugee Camps (Architecture, Design, Planning)
“For decades our television screens have been dominated by images of ragged people, hopelessly isolated within political limbo as destitute refugees. Movies describe refugee camps as exotic edge-of-the-earth locales full of victimized dark-skinned people. Magazines and websites occasionally release an article on a brand new shelter technology, solar stove, or water pump that is expected …
The (In)visible Architecture of Illegalised Refugees
“In the last few months groups of refugees have been campaigning to attract attention to their precarious position. Currently their applications for asylum in the Netherlands have been rejected, but they are unable to return to their country of origin for various reasons. The most important tool of their struggle has been the creation of a …
How Refugee Camp Architecture Is Capturing the Power of Shade
“Refugee camps set up by governmental agencies, international organizations like the United Nations and the Red Cross, and NGOs provide a place for displaced people to temporarily access food, water, and shelter. Camps are often set up in an impromptu fashion, designed only to provide basic needs for a short period of time. Tents constructed …
This Low-Cost Refugee Camp Architecture Is Made From Sand
“At the sprawling, city-like Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan, the average Syrian refugee is expected to stay as long as 17 years. And yet despite that time frame, many people are living in canvas tents that can start to fall apart in months. The U.N. is starting to invest in longer-lived prefab housing, like clever …
Architectures of the Disaster
“45.2 million people are currently displaced by conflict and persecution,according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR). The number accords with the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees articulation of a refugee as: an individual who has fled their country “owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, …
Why the refugee crisis calls for imaginative urban planning
“One fixture in the pictures that went round the world in the recent week of violent clashes outside a refugee shelter in Heidenau, Saxony, was the blue-and-yellow “Praktiker” sign, left over from the building’s days as a DIY center. It was repurposed by local authorities at short notice after heavy rain turned the refugee tent …
Beyond the Tent: Why Refugee Camps Need Architects (Now More than Ever)
“In 2013 alone some 1 million people have poured out of Syria to escape a civil conflict that has been raging for over two years. The total number of Syrian refugees is well over 2 million, an unprecedented number and a disturbing reality that has put the host countries under immense infrastructural strain. Host countries …
Home is Ready-to-Wear; an essay by Steven Rugare
“Most 21st century Americans live more like migrants or squatters than we would care to admit. The spaces we call “home” are generic, sometimes shockingly so. Very few of us live in a house custom-designed to our needs by an architect. The suburban landscape of cookiecutter houses is a literary cliché going back to the …
Architecture and Migration: Mosques in Germany
The earliest mosque-style building in Germany is the “Red Mosque” at Schwetzingen, built in 1779-1791 by a French architct for the Prince Elector of the Palatinate as part of a palace complex. Built at a time when the “Turkish” style was fashionable in Germany, it was never intended for prayer but later served religious purposes …
What’s missing from coverage on migration? Migrants.
From The Guardian: “A study of media coverage, released today, looked at how migrant voices and experiences were framed in the run-up to last year’s election and came up with findings that, even if not entirely new, cast yet more light on a subject of continuing public interest. As its title implies, Victims and Villains* …
Songs of the Syrian Refugees
“With his brow furrowed in concentration, Abu Abdullah rhythmically strums his oud, exploring the core of a melancholic melody. Mohamad Isa Almaziodi’s robust and melismatic voice soars above, full of emotional ornamentation – sighing and repeating, rising and falling – until he runs out of breath and the phrase is forced to finish. In his …
Migrant Voices: On the Journey North
From the LA Times: “The Vatican has said that Pope Francis’ journey through Mexico, which takes him from the southern state of Chiapas to the northern border with Texas, symbolically traces the route of migrants trying to reach the United States. Five Central American migrants attempting that journey reflect on their faith and the pope’s …
The Lotus Flower (2016)
From the Director, Jamie Noel: “With special thanks to Maya Konforti and all of our other friends who contributed to this film. This week, a huge portion of the Jungle refugee camp in Calais is due to be bulldozed. We can not sit back at let this happen… This film highlights everything we stand to lose …
Twelve-year-old Calais refugee: ‘I want to go to England’
“Inside one of the aid tents set up inside the migrant camp known as the ‘jungle’ 12 year old Sultana Adam helps her mother to hand out bags of food for the estimated 3000 residents. Sultana fled her home in Jalalabad four months ago and walked for a month to make it to Calais and …
Fire at Sea (2015)
“Fire at Sea, a harrowing documentary about Europe’s refugee crisis, has clinched the Golden Bear top prize from a jury led by Meryl Streep at the Berlin film festival. The movie by Italian director Gianfranco Rosi offers an unflinching look at life on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, where thousands of asylum seekers from Africa …
Syrian humanitarian aid in the technology age
“The conflict in Syria has left 6.5 million people internally displaced and created more than 2.2 million refugees. The bulk are living in the neighboring countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey, where the demands on humanitarian agencies and host governments are huge. Helping relieve this burden is the application of smart technologies.” Click here …