YOU + YOUR COUNTRY
GLOBAL WANDERERS AN ARTIST’S ITINERARY UNHCR Uses Art as a Medium BY IMOGEN KIMBER
E
ven before the civil war Karantina was an area where refugees gathered for temporary shelter, and subsequently an area where refugees have been massacred. Now in Karantina, next to the port, with its industrial cranes, depots and the Sukleen headquarters, sits a small gallery,the Art Factum, it is here that the UNHCR introduced ten Iraqi artists to Beirut. The exhibition, ‘Itineraries,’ consists exclusively of the work of refugees.
FINE ARTISTS
Stories of refugees drum up images of tragedy and hardship, and more often than not this is true, but the aim of this exhibition was not to re-emphasise this well established image, instead it was to encourage the perspective that refugees are more than helpless migrants. As with other cross sections of society there is a range of talents and skills. The exhibition “highlights refugees as talented people; people in Lebanon are not aware of refugees in terms of being talented or as actually adding value, usually they assume they are just a burden,” explained Dana Sleiman, Public Information Associate at the UNHCR in Lebanon.
26 | R A G M A G | www.ragmag.co
NEW WORLD ORDER