ABSTRACT
Many authors in this book have suggested that collaborations with new migrants may assist with their resettlement and enable existing populations to understand unfamiliar cultures. Exhibitions promote inclusion, but other activities are vitally important as well. Libraries offer access to literacy, resources related to the host community, and books or films representing the immigrants’ heritage community. Opportunities to create art provide outlets for traumatic memories. Oral history projects record the past before it is lost. Theater pieces and performances provide expression and allow for sharing with others. It is no surprise that all of these activities are offered to new migrants and refugees. Za’atari Refugee Camp in Jordan possesses a library providing entertainment for those living there (Beals 2013). Art for Refugees in Transition (A.R.T.) has worked with exiles since 1999, focusing primarily on Burmese, Colombian, and Balkan populations. By “drawing upon the indigenous art forms of each community, A.R.T.’s programs are designed to enable the elders of a culture to educate and incorporate the younger generation in their cultural traditions” (A.R.T. 2016). This initiative aims to prevent the kind of generational differences reported by Cabrera in her piece on the Polish Museum of America. At the infamous Jungle Camp in Calais, a theater group has set up shop (Haydon 2016). Emily Churchill has written about how Syrian artists are responding to refugees’ ordeals (2015), describing work by five professionals, currently dispersed as far as Australia, the Netherlands, and the USA. Australia’s Refugee Art Project was “conceived amongst a collective of academics and artists, united by a concern for the plight of refugees to Australia and the asylum seekers who wait in Australian detention centers. Since its inception in late 2010, more than five hundred artworks created by Refugee Art Project refugees and asylum seekers have been exhibited to the Australian public. Refugee Art Project is passionate about showcasing the enormous talent, locked away, beyond the razor wire” (2013). As mentioned earlier in this book, the exhibition at the Hackney Museum also includes children’s artistic expressions of their families’ experiences; many amateur projects result in displays or events with the intent of educating and raising awareness among the broader public.
