This paper presents a 10-year trajectory of research in the United Kingdom exploring the asylum-migration nexus and processes of belonging using participatory and arts-based methodologies. The relational dynamics involved in exploring the space between ethnography and arts-based practice (ethno-mimesis) are viewed through the work of critical theorists Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin. These psychoanalytic critical theorists provide a framework for thinking through the relationship between art and society, participatory research and the politics of representation.