Diasporic Imagnaries and the Re-narration of Local and National Belonging

Description

This paper explores how the concept of the diasporic imaginary can be brought into a productive interplay with another key concept in the discussions on art and global migration: the concept of postmigration (das postmigrantische). In order to provide an alternative to national frameworks for cultural analysis, this paper asks, firstly, what in our understanding would change if the diasporic and the postmigratory were imagined as the very conditions of possibility for narrating such collective identities today? And secondly, how can art move such narratives ‘to the centre’ by placing them in public space? The paper examines an art project in Copenhagen, Denmark: The Red Square, a part of the public park Superkilen (2012) in the multicultural Nørrebro district, designed by the artist group Superflex in collaboration with architects from Bjarke Ingels Group and Topotek 1. By way of this example, the paper seeks to shed light on how art in public spaces can open up a social and national imagination pervaded by anxieties about (post)migration to diasporic ways of thinking about belonging and collective identity.

Period	4 Apr 2019 → 5 Apr 2019
Event title	Diasporic Imaginaries: Multiple Senses of Belonging
Event type	Conference
Location	Paris, FranceShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International