Migrations: A field study of adversity

George Lakoff writes of metaphors, understanding and experiencing one thing in terms of another, that they are a form of “embodied thinking”, a discursive tool by which abstract concepts, thoughts and feelings are grasped and understood through the concrete and the everyday. Sometimes addressing traumatic events not directly, but at a slant, defamiliarizes in very insightful ways.  And so it is with Derek Robertson’s thoughtful exhibition, Migrations: A Field Study of Adversity, which employs the conceit of birds migrating—their lines of flight across borders, the dangers attendant on their journeys, their vulnerabilities, and also their will to survive against the odds – to address some of the difficult issues around the plight of refugees from which we, in our comfortable homes, might routinely avert our gaze.