Refugee Art Project have recently completed 3 new art zines made with refugees and asylum seekers in the Villawood detention centre and the Western Sydney area. These will be launched at the which will take place at level 3 of Central Park (which is very near Central Station) in Sydney on Sunday 25 May from 11 am to 4 pm. Our 3 new zines come in addition to the 4 zines we made previously, which will also be available at the fair.
Refugee Art Project Zine #5 is a new collection of drawings, poems, and interviews with refugees in detention, including work by our youngest participant, an 11 year-old child who has been detained for over 2 years.
Refugee Art Project Zine #6 is a women’s issue, featuring the art and writing of refugee women from the Villawood detention centre and our art workshop in Parramatta.
Refugee Art Project Zine #7 is a young person’s issue, featuring wonderful comics and portraits made by children and young people of a refugee background in Western Sydney. This zine was made in partnership with Fairfield High School.
All proceeds from these zines go towards our refugee support activities. The has been organised by a group of zine makers from Sydney as an alternative to the MCA Zine Fair. This is in response to the MCA’s links to Transfield, the company that services the offshore detention centres of Nauru and Manus Island. The Refugee Art Project feels it is unacceptable that Transfield gains symbolic legitimacy from supporting cultural and philanthropic institutions whilst colluding in the human rights violations that are committed by our government against asylum seekers in offshore camps. We encourage zinesters and the public to boycott and divest from companies and institutions that are linked to the detention industry. Our decision to enter the Other Worlds fair represents a continuation of our previous boycott (and subsequent late entry) to the 19th Biennale of Sydney, in response to the Biennale’s links with Transfield. You can read about that here.
Our table will also feature a number of personal zines made by Refugee Art Project volunteers. These include the work of Sydney-based artist and curator Zanny Begg. Zanny’s zines include:
Fourteen, a drawing series and publication, produced with the Refugee Art Project, in honour of Ahmed Ali Jafari, a young man who died in Villawood Detention Centre in June 2013.
Utopia (backwards), a utopian misadventure from the 1890s.
Suck It and See, a 16-page full colour zine that comprises a series of drawings on motherhood.
Mum is the World, a set of drawings on the experience of motherhood.
Safdar Ahmed will stock The Good Son, a zine that explores his childhood experience of domestic violence. You can see an online version of it .
Safdar’s Wierd Shit #2, contains a number of disparate reflections, comics and cartoons. These include drawings made with refugees in the Villawood detention centre. He will also have copies of his previous zines: Wierd Shit #1 and ‘Alam al-Mithal.
Anton Pulvirenti will stock his exciting new comic, Goomiland, which draws a new interpretation of Australian war history and the trials of his Sicilian grandfather in the Loveday internment camp in South Australia during World War II. It also incorporates some of Anton’s experiences and observations of being a Refugee Art Project participant and volunteer.
Please come and support out zines. We look forward to seeing you at the fair!
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