Anjee Helstrup

Homeland Insecurities: Diaspora and the Public Sphere

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This catalog selection features two excerpts from a larger project that explores the nature of diaspora and diasporic public spheres. The first excerpt focuses on local markets in the San Francisco Bay Area and defines a key theoretical term for the larger project. I use the markets as a starting point in understanding the visual dynamics of diaspora as encountered in everyday life in the San Francisco Bay Area. The second excerpt focuses on the piece Hostage: The Bachar Tapes (English Version) by the Atlas Group, shown at the international art exhibition Documenta 11. The analysis of Hostage serves as an example of the dynamics at play within a diasporic public sphere. Together these two examples begin to address the ways in which people connect to their homelands and how homelands are represented from a distance.