Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter, highlights the many different kinds of structures used to house these nationless peoples.
Refugee architecture has received a lot of attention from the design community, spanning from wearable tents to Ikea’s solar powered solution. The exhibition focuses on structures that are already in use in refugee camps around the world, giving visitors a look at the kinds of temporary shelters real people have to live in. The exhibit explores the housing limitations as short-term stays are extended due to political circumstances. It also explores the issues of cultural sensitivity and diversity that mean one-size-fits-all housing doesn’t meet all needs. Infrastructure also means that the structures themselves are a part of larger encampments, which is also critical to social life.
For over 60 million persons in the world today, shelter is defined through constant movement or escape. Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter explores the ways in which contemporary architecture and design have addressed notions of shelter in light of global refugee emergencies. From the strengthening of international borders to the logistics of mobile housing systems, how we understand shelter is ultimately defined through an engagement with security. Refugee camps, once considered temporary settlements, have become sites through which to examine how human rights intersect with the making of cities. Bringing together projects by architects, designers, and artists, working in a range of mediums and scales, that respond to the complex circumstances brought about by forced displacement, the exhibition focuses on conditions that disrupt conventional images of the built environment. (from the exhibition website)