Mitigating Displaced Place Identities in Ukrainian Wartime Art

The chapter discusses the heuristic value of the concept “displacement” in studying relations between the art and the place in the context of the war. Building on the seminal work of E. Relph “Place and Placelessness” (1976), artistic practice is interpreted as capable of mitigating displacement and shifting the existential outsideness to the existential insideness through an artistically created perceptual space. The latter encompasses reshaping of the displaced personal place identities of the artists and identities of places presented in the artworks. The text provides empirical evidence on displacement and consequent replacing and place-making activities of Ukrainian artists, who were forced to leave their home cities during the ongoing war in Ukraine.