Uncertain States – Affective Societies New “Heimat”?
Artistic Positioning in the Context of Migration and Mobility

A critical engagement with the loss of “Heimat” (home) is a frequent theme in artistic reflections on the current movement of refugees. What does home mean in times of flight and migration? What do feelings of home build on in foreign countries? Can home be sustained or recreated? What role do such searches for home play in the arts? The discussion with the art historian Burcu Dogramaci (Heimat. Eine künstlerische Spurensuche, Böhlau 2016) explores whether and how home can be re-defined in the context of the phenomenon of global migration. In this process, one main focus is on the current and historical attempts to localise the feeling of home in art.

Burcu Dogramaci is an art historian at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. One area of her research examines how the theme of “Heimat” is addressed in art, and the relationship between migration and artistic production.

As part of the Collaborative Research Center “Affective Societies” at Freie Universität Berlin, Anne Fleig and Jürgen Brokoff (German Studies) as well as Matthias Warstat, Friederike Oberkrome and Hans Roth (Theatre Studies) are conducting research into literature, theatre and migration issues. On 19/20 January 2017 in Berlin, they are jointly organising the conference “Involvement in the Context of Flight and Migration – Current Tendencies in Theatre and Literature”.

As part of the lecture series "Emotions and their Effects. Affective Dynamics of Flight and Migration".

A cooperation between the Akademie der Künste and the Collaborative Research Center “Affective Societies” at FU Berlin.

What role does affectivity play in the social and cultural upheavals presently shaping our globalised world? How do emotions contribute to the impression of social stability and security, and how do they provoke insecurities, threats and marginalisation? Which affective dynamics accompany the loss of familiar environments, and which emotions promote or hinder arrival in a new life? How is emotion used to shape the political agenda, and why it is often so difficult to counter this by argument?
This series of lectures and talks looks at contemporary art as an outstanding location for investigating and reflecting on emotions and affectivity in the context of flight, migration and mobility. In the process, academics and scholars involved in the “Affective Societies” Collaborative Research Center at Freie Universität Berlin enter into a dialogue with the artists, works and topics in the Uncertain States exhibition.

The interdisciplinary “Affective Societies” research centre at Freie Universität Berlin is investigating the fundamental importance of emotions and affectivity for social life in the mobile, networked and mediatised worlds of the twenty-first century.