The exile is, by definition, a stranger everywhere. However, it is precisely this condition of uprooting - marked by pain and loss, but often also by a particular lucidity - that makes him or her a central figure in understanding the contemporary world. Since the twentieth century, exile has not only been a condemnation, but also an existential condition from which springs a special sensitivity: that of one who observes from the outside, registering the faults of history before others. This was forcefully recalled by the last edition of the Venice Art Biennale, Foreigners Everywhere - observation and warning at once: it is now reiterated by Out of Place. Art and Stories from the World's Refugee Camps, the exhibition just brought to Padua by the Imago Mundi Foundation, in collaboration with the University of Padua and the City's Department of Culture. The 284 works on display were created by 264 artists from 18 refugee camps around the world: from Za'atari in Jordan to Kakuma in Kenya, from Kutupalong in Bangladesh - the world's most populous camp, a refuge for the Rohingya community - to the borders of the Algerian Sahara where Sahrawis survive. But also Afghan, Kurdish, Yazidi, Vietnamese, Ukrainian, South American voices. The map is global, the stories radically singular. This is the beating heart of the exhibition: opposing the rhetoric of the “wave”, of the indistinct mass, with the force of individuality. Each work is a statement of existence, each artist a name, a face, a story.