2022 UN Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction

As part of the 2022 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GP22), DISPLACEMENT presents an exhibition of contemporary art pieces and socially engaged art practices that address disaster displacement risk in local communities. The exhibition complements the conference’s thematic session Strengthening Governance to Reduce Disaster-Related Displacement as well as other disaster displacement related events throughout the week.

DISPLACEMENT will hold daily talks at the Innovation Platform booth When Art Meets DRR, bringing artists in conversation with DRR practitioners to explore various ways artists and cultural practitioners can work with local communities and DRR actors to reduce and anticipate disaster displacement risk.

Throughout GP22, Cuban-American artist Xavier Cortada will encourage delegates to reflect on their personal exposure to disaster displacement risk by definingthemselves not by their first names, but by their fears, hopes, purposes, futures, and elevations above sea level.Cortada will also present The Underwater, his socially engaged project in Miami, Florida, as a panelist on an official side event official side event organized by PDD and partners.

In Bali, DISPLACEMENT also highlights how Indonesia’s rich cultural traditions and contemporary art practices have engaged DRR issues. For instance, many credit traditional storytelling practices on Simeulue Island in Aceh with saving the lives of thousands of people in 2004 and 2005 when tsunamis, known locally as “Smong,” struck the coast. Stories passed down through generations warned that one should run away to higher ground with the ocean recedes.

Common Room Networks Foundation (Common Room) will share how they apply artistic strategies to DRR in the Cipatagelar indigenous community in rural West Java. The non-profit’s work includes personal and symbolic artworks, such as Arum Dayu and Yoyo Yogasmana’s photographs and videos depicting “Sawen Lembur” protection rituals to ward off evil spirits. It also develops multidisciplinary projects that merge art, culture, information communication technology, and digital media to tackle tidal flooding and the need for rural internet connectivity in Mangrove Hacklab and the School of Community Networks respectively.

Rhino Areifiansyah will present hisspeculative film Aléa, created with Swiss artist Marie Velardi in Vendée, France four years after the 2010 storm Xynthia struck the coast, killing more than 60 people and causing severe flooding and displacement.

Yoppi Andri will present a traditional Indonesian art performance that tells about the local wisdom of the Smong shared through Nandong & Nafi-Nafi on Simeulue Island on Aceh.

The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Anticipation Hub, the Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR), the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), and the Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD), with support provided by the German Federal Foreign Office, Common Room, the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), and UKAid.

To find more disaster displacement related events taking place at GP22, go to the PDD website: https://disasterdisplacement.org/disaster-displacement-at-gp2022