In concert with the national #SupportforRefugees campaign kicking off this spring co-led by Repair the World & HIAS, an exhibit featuring the work of two aid organizations, three artists, and one collective will be presented from April 16 – June 24, 2016. Photographs and videos tell personal stories of refugees and people who offer shelter, advocacy and other resources to them in order to shine a light on broader themes of home, safety, politics, war, family, and culture. 

On display will be portraits of recent refugees to the United States by Hidemi Takagi, a selection of photographs exploring the lives and stories of the Internally Displaced People of Colombia as part of a new series by Robert Pennington, and video documentation of the #OrangeVest, a participatory performance about refugees by Georgia Lale. There will also be photography of artwork by Syrian children who are refugees via the Castle Art Project, data visualization of the worldwide epidemic courtesy of The Refugee Project, as well as documentation of the work IsraAID has done over the past 15 years to meet the changing needs of refugee populations. More information about each project may be found below.

Open hours: Tuesday–Friday 12–6pm and by appointment
Opening reception: Saturday, April 16 from 6–9pm featuring a performance by Georgia Lale

Free admission

MORE ABOUT THE ARTISTS/PROJECTS:

Hidemi Takagi – Facing America attempts to fill the gap between what we know and what we see of refugees in the media. Takagi photographed refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Congo and Eritrea who have been resettled in New Haven, Connecticut, by Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS), an affiliate of Episcopal Migration Ministries and the Immigration and Refugee Program of Church World Service. The series was commissioned and presented by The Forum @ St. Ann’s (Brooklyn Heights) in February–March 2016.

Robert Pennington – Colombia is home to over 6 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) resulting from decades of armed civil conflict that has afflicted the country for more than 50 years. Estratos (strata) is a system that ranked people from one (the lowest) to six (the highest). Designed originally to help poor communities, instead it has marginalized an entire class of Colombians. The stigma could not be greater for los desplazados, whose unofficial ranking is zero. ZERO is an intimate, evocative study – a comprehensive exploration of what it is to be desplazado (displaced).

Georgia Lale – #OrangeVest is a commentary on the journey of the Syrian refugees from Turkey to Greece while they try to cross the Aegean Sea. It is a participatory performance, a sculpture and a protest aimed at raising awareness. Lale will perform as part of the NO PLACE LIKE HOME opening reception on April 16 at 6pm. 

Castle Art Project is a Syrian refugee camp NGO. Since 2012 over 2 million refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) have fled to the Kurdistan region of Iraq (KRG) seeking sanctuary from the onslaught of violence in their cities and villages.

Every Friday a group of children and teens hold paintbrushes and spray cans against this interruption to their lives, bringing colour, energy, voice and hope to the dreary walls of the refugee camp in Akré, Dohuk province, they now call home. A former Saddam-era prison and intelligence centre, its walls housed suffering and evil until its dilapidated and oppressive atmosphere was converted to house up to 270 Syrian Kurdish families fleeing violence. This makes the Akre refugee camp one of the most unique art spaces in the world. 

The Refugee Project is a narrative, temporal map of refugee migrations since 1975.  They use UN data to visualize refugee volumes over time and added a layer of historical content to help explain the events that caused some of the largest refugee movements of the last four decades. 

IsraAID was founded in 2001 and is a non-profit NGO committed to providing life-saving disaster relief and long term support. For over a decade, our teams of professional medics, search & rescue squads, post-trauma experts and community mobilizers, have been first on the front lines of nearly every major humanitarian response in the 21st century. Their mission is to efficiently support and meet the changing needs of populations as they strive to move from crisis to reconstruction/rehabilitation, and eventually, to sustainable living.