A Conversation on Displacement and Loneliness

Resettlement affects both sides: those who leave often face legal insecurity, uprooted social networks, discrimination, estrangement, and precarization; for families left behind, the absence of the younger and middle generations often creates gaps in existing care and support structures.

Yet, displacement is not solely geographic; it is also an ongoing cultural and political condition. How can the existential loneliness shaped by living and working conditions – or the emotional dissonance of feeling “at home” yet out of place – be articulated artistically?

In relation to a bereavement in his family in Vietnam, the German-Vietnamese artist Minh Duc Phams work “Be Right Back” retraces the history of Vietnamese contract workers in the former GDR .

In “I Understand”, the Chinese artist Hao Jingban reflects on her experience of anti-Asian racism during the Covid pandemic.

Danil Usmanov’s photographic work “Valley of the Winds” centers on the children of migrant workers in rural Kyrgyzstan.

All of these works explore the forms of agency that can emerge from experiences of loneliness.

During the conversation, the artists and the curator, Dr. Jenny Jiaying Chen, engage in a dialogue and discuss their perspectives, working methods, and experiences.