Lebanon has the highest number of refugees per capita in the world. Ahead of World Refugee Day on 20 June, this session will bring together members of UCL’s Institute for Global Prosperity and the RELIEF Centre to discuss the role of the arts in situations of mass displacement. We will see and hear poetry, documentary excerpts, photography, as well as a contribution to last year’s Venice Biennale. This will prompt a conversation around media and humanitarian representations of refuge and displacement, and how artistic expressions can open up new avenues of self-representation, research, and advocacy.

Image credits: Ai Weiwei, Soleil Levant, installation of refugees’ life jackets on the facade of Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2017). (c) TeaMeister