Children’s Art: Histories and Cultural Meanings of Creative Expression by Displaced Children

Abstract

This chapter will consider examples of the collection and public circulation of drawings by children who have been displaced by war and conflict in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), Theresienstadt concentration camp, Terezín (1942–1944) and genocide in Darfur (2003). It explores some of the meanings made from these drawings and reflects upon the ways historians can use these evocative primary source materials. The chapter then focuses on drawings from the early 2000s by and about children held in immigration detention by the Australian government. These drawings are part of a visual documentation of children’s lives, and provide historians with access to the ways children have communicated personal and political concerns, and the ways these children’s voices have and have not been heard.