Museum Migration as Art Museum

We're proud to introduce you to Longitude-Latitude: Migration as Art created by Australian artist Stephen Copland. The archive represents two decades of art interpreting themes of migration: migration for family reunion, the migration of asylum seekers and a personal migration for work.
The Migration Series (1992-2002) describes the discovery of the artist’s Cuban grandmother’s diary that led to a decade of national and international exhibitions into heritage and identity. The second series, “Raft-The Drifting Border” (2004-2014) is the artist’s interpretation of the darker side of migration and refugees seeking asylum in Australia. The third series titled, “Transit” (2007-2013) is a series of artworks that interprets the symbolic and subjective aspects of identities in transit in a globalised world.
The archive develops a narrative between personal stories, identity and political observations over three decades. The Museum in Conzano will have changing exhibitions and educational programmes. Open or download the guide and discover the stories behind this unique archive of artworks.

In 2024  we began the Quentin Bryce Creative Residency with the aim to further create cultural connections and experiences of local and international collaborations that can build partnerships across the arts and sciences; literature, geography, ethnography, social sciences and anthropology and all areas that reinvent and contribute to perspectives centered on humane society.

2024
La mostra TRANSITO - TASSONOMIA DELLA NATURA E DELLA CULTURA

Transit: a state of flux, motion, uncertainty – of being between places, times, life events – a passage from one to the other. As humans we are in constant transit. Our lives are a great journey, from beginning to end, ever changing, ever transforming – unwillingly. We are migrants by nature, changing appearance, thought, experiences, and attachments – wondering from one age to the next.
Dr. Jochen Sokoly, Virginia Commonwealth University, Doha, Qatar, Transit Catalogue

2023

On August 27, 2023 at 11 am in the village of Conzano, in the province of Alessandria, Australian artists Stephen Copland and Meredith Brice completed a dream that became a reality with the opening of The Migration as Art Museum Phase 1 in the "Land of the Australians. The Museum will also "honor and preserve the immigration bond between the Conzano community and Australia." with a visual homage to the former resident of the 1750 building, Sister Stefanella, a member of the Novelli family and a Consolata Missionary Sister who has been developing humanitarian projects for 50 years in Africa, Somalia and recently Tanzania. She identified herself as a "migrant for God".

As an explorer of cultures, ethnographer and artist, Stephen Copland explored his Scottish, Lebanese and Cuban heritage through journals, travel, teaching and art. Over a period of thirty years the concept of Migration as Art Museum was developed which includes a series of three archives of national and international exhibitions, workshops and participation in university symposiums.

In 2024 the Museum will begin the Quentin Bryce creative residency with the aim to further create cultural connections and experiences of local and international collaborations that can build partnerships across the arts and sciences; literature, geography, ethnography, social sciences and anthropology and all areas that reinvent and contribute to perspectives centered on human society.

2021 Crossing borders, connecting cultures, 18th IMISCOE Annual Conference online
Workshop and presentation, July 7- 9, 2021, Luxembourg

2021 Workshop and presentation, The Migration Conference - Online Hosted by International British Business School and Ming Ai Institute London

2020 Embracing difference-the work of art Conference on Education,University of Barcelona, Spain.

2018 EASA Biennial Conference “Nationalism Old and New: Europe, Australia and Their Others” University of Barcelona, Spain

2018 Landscape of Heritage workshop, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

In conjunction with Senior curator Rhonda Davis and the Sociology of the Arts course convened by Dr Alison Leitch

2018 Landscape of Heritage workshop at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts, Turin. Italy  February

The Academy of Turin is one of the oldest in Italy. In recent years the Albertina Academy has been transformed and renewed, promoting countless didactic and cultural activities: the re-organization and re-opening to the public of the Picture Gallery; the restoration of the building and the rationalisation of the internal spaces (still to be completed); numerous exhibitions, conferences, seminars and festivals; a sizeable introduction of computer technology; the institution of new courses of Preservation, Restoration and Graphics.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8isNmM3JXg7B0lhYIzgoog

2016 Landscape of Heritage workshop, Studiodieci City Gallery, Vercelli, Italy.

http://scopland.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-landscape-of-heritage-migration-as.html#top