© IWM Museum visitors explore Refugees: Forced to Flee, supported by AHRC and ESRC.

A major new national exhibition at London’s Imperial War Museum (IWM) and newly commissioned artwork by Indrė Šerpytytė have been informed by research undertaken by Warwick University professor Vicki Squire and her team.

Vicki Squire, Professor of International Politics, research on borders and migration, at the University of Warwick

© IWM A visitor to Refugees: Forced to Flee, supported by AHRC and ESRC, views a newly commissioned artwork by artist Indrė Šerpytytė, informed by research by Vicki’s team at Warwick University.

Refugees: Forced to Flee, which runs until May 24 2021, explores a century of refugee experiences, from Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews to the Calais Jungle. Combining new research and real-life experiences with photographs, oral histories, documents and objects – many new – it questions why conflict forces people to leave home.

It includes an animated audio installation based on research from the ‘Crossing the Mediterranean Sea by Boat’ project led by Professor Squire’s at the university’s PAIS (Politics & International Studies) department at Warwick, ELIAMEP Athens and University of Malta.

The team collected the stories of people from the Middle East and Africa making the dangerous journey to safety in Europe through in-depth interviews. They wanted to give those arriving to Europe the opportunity to tell their own stories highlighting the effects of EU migration policies on the journeys, experiences, understandings, expectations, concerns and demands of people on the move.

Vicki, a Professor of International Politics, research on borders and migration, said: “It is really exciting to see our research standing alongside some of the best AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) and ESRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) research on forced migration in this important new exhibition.

“As a research team, we owe it to those who so courageously spoke to us to share as widely as we can their experiences of precarious journeys and experiences of arrival to the EU. Thanks to IWM London for supporting us with this.”

© IWM Another visitor to Refugees: Forced to Flee views a series of paintings by Shorsh Saleh, who travelled to the UK as a refugee 18 years ago.

Challenging perceptions by putting people’s experiences at the centre of Refugees: Forced to Flee, is rooted in cutting-edge research. The museum is also showing Life in a Camp’ immersive film footage from the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, home to around 18,000 Syrian refugees.

Refugees: Forced to Flee and Life in a Camp at IWM London are free to enter until May 24 2021, as part of Refugees, a free season of exhibitions, artistic commissions and immersive events taking place across IWM London and IWM North in 2020 and 2021. It also features a new site-specific art commission at IWM London from world-renowned artist Ai Weiwei.

View the Crossing the Mediterranean interactive map here. #IWMRefugees

See this! Refugees: Forced to Flee, Imperial War Museum, London

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