“Refugee Astronaut II,” created by Yinka Shonibare in 2016, is a sculptural artwork that falls within the realms of contemporary and postcolonial art. The artwork illustrates a heightened sense of displacement and global cultural interconnections through the medium of a three-dimensional figure dressed in vibrant patterns and colors.
The central figure in the artwork is an astronaut adorned in a spacesuit made from African wax print fabrics, characteristically rich in color and pattern. Instead of a standard astronaut’s backpack, this figure carries an assortment of objects tied together with a net, symbolizing the burdens and belongings of a person in transit. The objects carried appear to be an eclectic mix of everyday items, signifying the personal and cultural fragments carried by refugees. The combination of the futuristic and the traditional, seen in the juxtaposition of the spacesuit and the wax print fabric, reflects the artist’s commentary on survival, identity, and the merging of diverse histories and cultures. The entire sculpture is mounted on a minimalist platform, enhancing its visual isolation and metaphorical journey through both time and space.
