WHEN ATTITUDES BECOME INFRASTRUCTURE: ARTISTIC PRACTICES AT THE LIMITS OF MIGRATION SYSTEMS AND INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE

Abstract

Understanding migration itself as an infrastructure — one that is structurally fragmented, bureaucratically opaque, and often deliberately dysfunctional — the paper explores contemporary artistic practices through the concept of infrastructural art, focusing on how artists engage with systemic failures. Using a case study approach, it analyses three artistic tactics — invasive, fugitive, and counter-infrastructure — that intervene in broken systems not as metaphors, but as operational responses. The article argues that, rather than merely representing displacement, these practices materialise alternative infrastructures of care, education, and integration.