Worlding and Storying Forced Displacement: Contemporary Art and Refugee Experience in Denmark

The question of how refugees are to be hosted and represented in Europe is not only an urgent one but a persistent one. Drawing on art history, migration studies and postmigration studies, Anne Ring Petersen examines contemporary artistic representations of forced displacement. She argues that artistic and curatorial practices can help foster cultural citizenship among refugees and asylum seekers as well as deepening the understanding of refugeedom in host countries through art’s worldmaking and storytelling capacities. Focusing on Denmark, and including a chapter on Palestine, this study adds new perspectives to postmigration studies and a pioneering exploration of understudied material to art history.

Anne Ring Petersen is a professor at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Her research explores transcultural and migratory approaches to and forms of cultural production, focusing especially on the transformative impact of migration, postmigration and globalization on contemporary art practices and identity formation.