The subject of the refugees crisis in Europe is no news to most of us. The spread of the subject is only getting bigger and wider. When some might feel like there isn’t much that we can actually do to make a change or contribute. Part of Us was developed by students from the University of the Arts London to engage with the rising issue.
For centuries art was used as a tool to explore not only human and natural beauty but to bring the conversation out about different political issues. Facing the refugees crisis, Europe struggles the need to answer the question how to combine and fit together people flowing from such different religious and cultural backgrounds. As we are facing so many inevitable questions, the need to find right answers and meet to talk about them is rising.
Finding solutions throughout artistic background students from University of the Arts London took a stand to talk about refugees and migrants that came to Europe and are still coming up to settle on the continent. They have found a way to help, by organising an exhibition then followed by an auction at Central Saint Martins. Work donated by UAL students, staff, and alumni, and sold at the auction, will then be dedicated for NGOs working in the Calais camps.
The exhibition combined an exploration and used a refugees crisis to connect those who are not familiar with the subject, and with those who are experiencing it. By the use of different media varying from subculture, painting, photography and film throughout digital phone app and website created by the Refugee Phrasebook Project, engaged in discussing and further analysing the crisis.
Refugee Phrasebook Project is aimed to vanish the biggest barrier for those who arrive in different countries. Usually not knowing the language, Refugee Phrasebook Project makes the necessary communication possible. In words of one of the creators, Caoimhe Gallagher, project “is not to replace a language course but to make an everyday communication easily accessible when the situation requires it.”
Part Of Us approaches the crisis in a different way, opening the doors for creatives to join the conversation. The collective is already planning actions that would go farther beyond April’s auction. Dates for further summer project are to be announced soon.