The Refugee Art Project would like to thank everyone who supported our activities this year and we wish you all a Happy New Year.
In particular, we would like to acknowledge the many young people and schoolchildren who have responded to our exhibitions, some of whom produced powerful artworks of their own that comment on the treatment of refugees in Australia.
Natalie Linder saw refugee artworks on our website that her schoolteacher had shown her. This inspired her to create a mixed media artwork, titled ‘Welcome to Australia’. Her work was exhibited in the fabulous Storylines Festival (at Bondi Pavilion), which we were proud to contribute towards in August this year.
Natalie Linder, ‘Welcome to Australia’, mixed media on canvas.
Her artist’s statement included the following:
“My artwork does comment on Australian lifestyle indirectly because Australians value freedom and the natural environment, which these refugees and asylum seekers are being denied. I have sought to humanise this ‘issue’ and to allow some emotion and make people aware that this is happening to real lives and real people and families.”
Well done Natalie!
In Melbourne we were delighted to meet Tomi Rodoni and her mum, Annette. They attended our Life in Limbo exhibition at the Level 17 Gallery in Victoria University and were given a guided tour by one of our refugee-artists. Inspired by what she had seen, Tomi created a coffee painting and a wonderful mixed media artwork. Like Natalie, Tomi’s work demonstrates a strong sensitivity to what refugees commonly experience when they are forced to leave their country.
‘Refugee Heartache’, mixed media by Tomi Rodoni
It’s the inspiration of young people like these that moves us and gives us hope that one day Australia will begin to see refugees not as an imaginary threat to our way of life, but as people who deserve our help and support.
We wish everyone a Happy New Year for 2013!
Please keep asylum seekers in your thoughts and prayers this holiday season and let’s hope for positive changes in the year ahead.
Lots of love,
Safdar Ahmed, Bilquis Ghani and the rest of the Refugee Art Project team.