Making Sense of Resilient Life at the International Center of Photography Museum in New York City

This critical essay reviews two recent simultaneous exhibits at the International Center of Photography Museum in New York City in order to place the concept of resilience in the contemporary context of human insecurity and violence.It shows how the notion of resilient life is uncritically espoused by some contemporary artists and photographers in a way that renders the concept of resilience commonplace, expected, and unproblematic and, as such, incapable of offering a necessary challenge to various forms of violence against bodies and lives today.