There’s No Place Like Home: Collaborate, Communicate, Change Minds
The Justice Arts and Migration (JAM) Network, which now includes Monash University Malaysia, was formed between Lincoln and Hong Kong in 2018:
- To interrogate the role of art practice in articulating the status of citizenship and belonging for migrant demographics.
- To deploy creative research methodologies in the discovery and analysis of migrant perspectives within and across national and sub-national borders.
- To reframe and re-test contemporary theoretical articulations of the migrant condition through situated arts-based interventions.
During the first Lunchtime Talk Series powered by PechaKucha which was held on 06 April 2021, Professor Stephanie Donald discussed the process of creating a living network between academics, artists, social activists, refugees, migrants, and the wider community. The goal has been to link research to social benefit through arts-oriented, engagement-centred activity, and to place responsive exchange of ideas at the heart of the work. The deployment of visual and musical and physical arts is led by professional creatives and privileges the experience of those who have sought or are seeking sanctuary, (a place called home).
The JAM Network’s aims are based on the existing research practices and findings of our original membership but seek to build a welcoming and collaborative infrastructure through which academics, scholars, service providers, and activists from all over the world can learn from one another. We are especially honoured when those who bring lived experience to their professional perspectives and contributions form part of our collective and our debates.
The hypothesis being explored in JAM projects is that creative arts practice has a unique power not just to influence public opinion about questions of migration, refuge, and asylum, but to change perceptions and so produce new forms of understanding and encourage ethically informed activism.