Passing through the Door April 15, 2010

To be held in room L-122

Mark Auslander explores the social life of acrylic paintings created by young male southern Sudanese artists, primarily residing in Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya. Initially understood as concretized dream visions of the dead and material prayers for deliverance, the works have gradually been reclassified in the Sudanese diaspora as exemplary objects of cultural heritage.

This transformation is associated with a shift in the gendered meaning of the images. As the works have been revalued as the patrimony of the diaspora, female figures in the paintings have come to evoke the promise of intimate reconnection to the southern Sudanese motherland. As the possibility of renewed civil war looms in South Sudan, these images have become flashpoints in diasporic debates over nationhood, militancy and the possibilities of peace-making.