Fourth MIT Global Humanities Forum on “Recovering Agency through Visual Arts amid Political Uncertainty and Exile”

The Heritage, Memory, and Identity pillar of MIT’s Global Humanities investigates how the legacies of the past continue to structure contemporary societies and future imaginaries. It views heritage not as a static collection of monuments, but as a dynamic process of meaning construction through which communities negotiate belonging, power, and identity. By engaging with the political, ethical, and creative dimensions of memory, the pillar seeks to illuminate how cultural legacies can both reproduce inequities and inspire new forms of resilience and repair. This ongoing project demonstrates this approach. Relocating Agency amid Political Uncertainty and Exile brings Burmese visual artists that are dealing with exile and uncertainty into dialogue with MIT and international audiences through workshops, exhibitions, and publications that explore art as a form of soft power and political survival amid displacement and authoritarian repression. By reconnecting forgotten exchanges across regions and epochs, this initiative models how critical heritage studies can bridge past injustice with the ethical imagination of more equitable futures.

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