A story of forced displacement

Somewhere To Stay is an exhibition of artworks by Diana Forster, which explores a story of forced migration through installation, sculpture and print. 

The recent, horrific events in Ukraine mirror those of 1940, when Russian troops invaded eastern Poland at the beginning of the second World War. A million Polish people were forced from their homes at gunpoint and sent to labour camps in Siberia. Diana Forster’s mother, Anna Sokulska Forster, and grandparents were among them.

Forster’s exhibition depicts the extraordinary journey and different kinds of shelter endured by the Polish deportees. It focuses attention on people whose tales are not often told, and invites us to think about the huge contributions that Polish exiles have made in the decades since WWII to the communities where they settled.  It also helps us to visualize the rupture and loss that forced migrants experience, wherever and whenever they are displaced, and the strength and kindness that are often part of their complex stories.

The central installation work in Somewhere to Stay was originally commissioned by Imperial War Museums as part of the IWM 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund in partnership with the Visualising War and Peace project at the University of St Andrews.

The laser-cut images of the story panels were influenced by the traditional Polish craft of paper cutting (wycinanki).  The cut-out images make it possible to cast shadows that add another dimension to the artwork and suggest the idea of the ‘long shadow of war’.

Somewhere To Stay offers a reflective, caring space for visitors to explore many different aspects of forced migration, and we hope that it will generate valuable conversations about how we describe refugees and asylum seekers now and in the future.

Somewhere to Stay was commissioned by the Visualising War and Peace Project, as part of their wider exploration of war and its impacts. We invite you to visit our project website to find out more - here