Displaced Placemaking, Bioart and Beyond-Human Communication

This article develops the concept of displaced placemaking as a theoretical and methodological framework for examining how individuals experiencing forced migration engage with environments through art-based practice and Earth–outer space perspectives. Drawing on observations and creative work at sites in northern and southern Finland, the study explores how experiences of spatial and cultural rupture shape human–environment relationships across multiple temporal and spatial scales. Rather than treating displacement solely as a condition of loss, the framework emphasises how observation, documentation and engagement with more-than-human systems can generate new, non-assimilative forms of environmental connection.


Displaced placemaking draws from complexity theory, environmental humanities, and critical bioart practices to offer methods that are both materially accessible and conceptually responsive to structural exclusions. Through tools such as scalar analysis, temporal recalibration and boundary identification, the approach situates localised environmental experience within broader planetary systems without assuming continuity, origin or territorial fixity. The study contributes to scholarship on migration and environmental ethics by articulating practices of attention, co-creation and situated accountability, while interrogating the boundaries of ecological knowledge production across disciplines and scales.

Keywords: displacement, placemaking, bioart, complex systems, environmental humanities, beyond human, Earth-outer space systems, more-than-human