Reena Kallat’s giant world map at the MOMA highlights global refugee crisis

Reena Kallat’s giant world map at the MOMA highlights global refugee crisis

The Museum of Modern Art, New York is attempting bringing to attention a pressing global issue: the refugee crisis. In an ongoing exhibition, the museum tries to define the term “home” which in recent time has become an ambiguous—and even temporary—concept for over 60 million people. That is a humongous figure, but it reveals the extent of the crisis that is upon the world as people seek refuge from violence and disasters. In Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter, MOMA brings together works of architects, designers, and artists whose works respond to the situations brought about by forced displacement. Mumbai-based artist Reena Kallat’s site specific installation—Woven Chronicle—a giant world map held together by a tangle of multi-coloured wires which trace the movement of migrants across the world, brings an artful new way of understanding the problem. The installation is also a source of an unsettling milieu of sounds: phone signals, electrical pulses, and bird chirps.