Stories of Migration

16 Jan-22 Mar 2025

Positive Negatives, Unstoppable Beat

Overview

Stories of Migration celebrates 12 years of innovative storytelling from SOAS-based, not-for-profit organisation, PositiveNegatives.

They specialise in transforming academic research into illustrated stories to engage a wider audience. This often involves collaborating with international teams of artists and writers to produce original comics and animations. The effectiveness of this approach has led to partnerships with prestigious universities across the world, including: SOAS, Sussex, UCL, Max Planck Institute, Harvard and the Peace Research Institute Oslo, along with organisations such as the United Nations, Open Society Foundations, Nobel Peace Centre, The Guardian and the BBC.

While the portfolio of work spans many topics and global issues, migration has been a recurring theme. This exhibition provides a rare insight into the process of creating these pieces, from initial research to scripting and storyboarding, and finally the finished artwork. 

It presents some of the most powerful projects PositiveNegatives has produced, shining a light on issues such as the Sri Lankan conflict and Global South to South migration.

Drawing from under-heard voices, including migrants themselves, it explores questions such as why do people move across borders, what are the personal, social and economic forces that shape their decisions, what perils do they face on their journeys, and how can they build a new life in a new country?

The story of migration never truly ends. There are always new voices to amplify, new challenges to highlight and new solutions to seek.

The exhibition also launches PositiveNegatives’ latest initiative, Animated Learning, which builds on the essence of each project to develop inspiring educational resources for students and educators. Schools will be encouraged to visit the exhibition to engage with the subject matter and help shape the future of Animated Learning.

Founding Director of PositiveNegatives, Dr Benjamin Worku-Dix, says, “The story of migration never truly ends. There are always new voices to amplify, new challenges to highlight and new solutions to seek. This exhibition gives visitors the chance to immerse themselves in previous chapters and play a part in our next chapter.”