Introduction

This chapter sets out the volume’s focus on artistic representations of forced migration in Europe. It delineates the conventional responses to refugees that are expressed in European societies—the tendency towards empathetic humanitarian welcome, or refuge; and the hostile environment created by authorities within and around Europe’s borders, or regime—and examines how these have been expressed in artistic and cultural production. Acknowledging the hierarchies that maintain and promote inequality and silence those with lived experience of migration and detention, it considers the potential strategies that might address these structural issues and explores the role of art in challenging and subverting existing assumptions.