Artists very often travel to other countries in order to show their work or make a new piece. For some artists, the activity of travelling from one place to another, being nomadic, crossing borders and negotiating cultural differences, is the subject of
their work. A number of artists on this
site have made work about travelling, journeys and maps. This kind of work
is invariably time-based, because
moving from one place to another
takes time. Even moving around
the globe in cyberspace is effected
by time - it may only take seconds
to click and download, but there
are global time differences to
consider.

Sometimes people are forced to make
journeys not for work or pleasure, but
through political or economic
circumstances. Refugees are displaced
from the place they consider to be home
by war or violence or famine, and are
forced to live in exile. Sometimes a larger number of people are driven out of
one country because of their political
beliefs or ethnicity. This happened
in Europe during the Second World
War, when Jewish people fled from
Nazi persecution, and more recently
in Rwanda and in Kosovo.

In these circumstances, people have to leave very quickly, often with nothing more than the clothes on their back. Anything they managed to bring with them will become a memento to remind them
of home or family far away. Precious
objects and cultural rituals can help
people locate themselves.Mari Mahr
works with objects and photographs
of personal and cultural significance, combining them to produce narrative
series, which often reflect her family's
mixed Jewish - Hungarian - Chlilean background.

Other artists you could investigate in relation to this area are:

• Rita Keegan
• Chohreh Feyzdjou
• Sutapa Biswas
• Oladele Ajiboye Bamgboye

Artists exploring the physical processes of travelling have often made reference to their own personal journeys, and these migrations have affected them. David Medalla follows in the footstepsof Medieval artists, who commonly travelled for their
commissions.