Exhibition Review

By Jessica Lynn Fowler

The United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, defines refugee as ‘[persons] fleeing conflict or persecution.’ (The UN Refugee Agency, 2016) An estimated 65 million individuals within the world today are placed within the classification of asylum-seekers, internally displaced persons, or refugees. (Edwards, UNHCR, 2016) As a part of The Museum of Modern Art’s ongoing displacement series Citizens and Borders, the exhibition Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter , examines the global refugee crisis through the framework of shelter , not solely as physical structure but as the perception of security, permanence, and belonging.

Installation view of Insecurities. The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1 October, 2016-22 January, 2017)

Insecurities envelops as wide an array of media and objects as it does artists, architects, academics, and designers. According to Sean Anderson, Associate Curator of MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design (2016), the aim was to ‘make…