“Glub,” a multimedia exhibit exploring aesthetics of human migration, to be displayed at Case Significant element examined as migrants’ art, culture, traditions blend with those of their new home.

The effects of human migration, both on migrants themselves and the societies receiving them, has long been a subject of fascination to academics and authors. But there is also a significant aesthetic element to migration as the art, culture and traditions of migrants blend with those of their new home.

The aesthetics of migration is the subject of “Glub,” an exhibit by Dutch art historian and cultural theorist Mieke Bal and Shahram Entekhabi, an Iranian-born artist and architect living in Berlin. The exhibit, sponsored by Case’s Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities.

“Glub” is the Arabic word for “hearts” and is used to describe the roasted, salted seeds which are a popular food among Arabs who have migrated to European cities. The sight of unemployed Arab men gathered on street corners in Berlin eating roasted seeds is now so common, the artists write, that it can be considered a case of migratory aesthetics.

Bal and Entekhabi use Glub as a starting point to provide a positive image of migration as an aesthetic phenomenon, with economic and political overtones. Conceived as primarily performative, the installation integrates media and sense experiences through the use of film, video, and audio tapes to provide both a celebration and a comprehensive picture of the aesthetics of migration.

Bal and Entekhabi are also visiting fellows in the Baker-Nord Center’s fall seminar program, an annual fall faculty seminar focused on a broad theme. This year’s theme is “Homelands and Security.”

Timothy K. Beal
Florence Harkness Professor of Religion
Director, Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, OH