Violent Infrastructure: Ecologies of Decay and Displacement

Abstract

Violent Infrastructure: Ecologies of Decay and Displacement is a traveling photovoice exhibition that features thirty photographs taken by ten internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the Republic of Georgia. The photographs capture IDPs’ three decade-long experience living in “temporary” housing in the former Soviet spa resort of Tskaltubo. The photographs were collected as part of a feminist visual ethnography, which studies the emotional impact of housing infrastructure conditions. The project asked how housing quality impacts IDPs’ sense of identity, personhood, and dignity; shapes IDPs’ life trajectories and relationships; and structures IDPs’ decisions, daily routines, and social practices. In a period of increasing numbers of forcibly displaced people worldwide, the exhibit builds critical consciousness by amplifying the voices of displaced persons to tell their stories of spatial injustice, social marginalization, and the attrition violence of war’s capacity to harm over an elongated time horizon.