Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses programs developed by four institutions empowering refugees by using art as a foundation for building skills, learning a new culture and community, and creating a forum for expression. It utilizes a strategy initially designed to provide access to collections for visitors with disabilities. The book provides an overview of the organization, a discussion of the theoretical approaches that guide their work, and examples illustrating work in action on the ground, specifically in Sri Lanka, Kosovo, and Algeria/Western Sahara. It considers the background of this exhibition: the influx of Puerto Rican migrants and their building of Casitas as survival tactics in response to urban blight, and how the radical art politics of the 1960s and 1970s formed social practice art history. The book reviews a pre-service Art Education course utilizing models of design thinking that engage with making technologies.