The project’s findings will deepen our understanding of migration, wartime experiences, and the positive role that creative expression can play in supporting people’s wellbeing. These insights remain highly relevant today, as societies continue to face lockdowns, displacement, and the challenges of conflict.

The project:

• Determines the ongoing impact of Prisoners of War (POW) cultural heritage in the everyday reality and identity of the post-war rural and regional communities in Australia and in other countries.
• Provides a comparative study of the experiences and cultural production of Italian detainees across diverse countries
• Redefines these creative acts in confinement as vectors of affective relationships between prisoners, captors, civilians, and prisoners’ relatives in multilingual and multicultural contexts.

Our collection consists of objects, artworks, artefacts and written texts held in diverse repositories around the world.

Through international collaborations and the development of digital resources, the project aims to share its results widely—not only within academic circles, but also with the public and policymakers who can apply these lessons in contemporary contexts.

This project is funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant.