UMÁTICA. Journal on Image Creation and Analysis

Call for Papers #09: Migration and Contemporary Art in Turbulent Times

Fig. Dan Acostioaei, Seas under Deserts, 2016 -2017, video still from video installation HD, color/sound, 9’53”, ©Dan Acostioaei

Key words: migration, cartography, human geography, refugees, nationalism, ethics of representation, Global South

Editors:

Cristian NAE (George Enescu National University of Arts, Iasi, Romania)
emil-cristian.nae@unage.ro

Oana Maria NAE (George Enescu National University of Arts, Iasi, Romania)
maria-oana.nae@unage.ro

Daniel UNGUREANU (George Enescu National University of Arts, Iasi, Romania)
 daniel.ungureanu@unage.ro

Deadline: 28/02/2026

Migration has long been central to contemporary art’s theoretical and curatorial discourses, reflecting broader global conditions of mobility, post-colonial legacies, and hybrid cultural identities. Over the past three decades, the representation of diasporic cultures, border crossings, creolization and cultural translation, and cosmopolitan imaginaries has shaped the very contours of what we understand as the contemporary. Yet, the current resurgence of exclusionary nationalism, authoritarian populism, and anti-migrant rhetoric—particularly in Europe and the United States—demands a renewed critical engagement with how migration is visualized, historicized, and theorized in art. 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 cartographies of migration documenting the mobility and the precarious social condition of migrants, including the damnation and zombification of the image of the migrant, have also been present in mainstream curatorial discourses over the years, they have been certainly less explored in art historical scholarship. The present issue intends 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. 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 our turbulent and increasingly violent cultural and social lives?(read more...)