IAA
and migrants
Humanity
in exile
The 19th General Assembly of the AIAP/IAA, meeting from February
22 to 26, 2023 in Istanbul, Turkey, was inaugurated by a Symposium
dedicated to 'Humanity in exile: Condition of artists and intellectuals
in exile'. This Symposium, organized by the National Committee
of Turkey (UPSD) invited quality speakers like Ezra Yildiz (Turkish
President of the AICA, Associate Professor at the University
of Bilgiz), Firat Arapoglu (Art Historian and Curator of exhibitions),
Professor Dr. Hassan Bülent Kahraman (critic, writer, Rector
of the University of Isik), and Polina Somochkina (Director
of the residence for artists in Istanbul). As well as refugee
artists in Turkey : Khayyam Zidane, Maryam Mazrooei, Sayed Saoud,
and jurist Pinar Sönmez. Members of the AIAP/IAA also offered
interventions and testimonies from their countries: Christos
Symeonides (Cyprus), Maria Moroz (Poland), Igors Dobicins (Lithuania),
Jerome Ince -Mitchell and Clémentine Bedos (UK). This
Symposium was moderated by Sibel Baykam, journalist and author.
Read
the presentation text of the Symposium through this link
[PDF].
Following
the Migration Forum held in Tunis, in September
2018, the visual artist Fatema Binet Ouakka, an AIAP-IAA member,
was asked by Mrs Chantal Jarousse, a member of the Associations
'Citizenship and Active Citizenship of Lorraine' and 'Les Velainois
vigileants', to supervise painting workshops for unaccompanied
minor and adult migrants, mainly coming from Africa and Eastern
countries. Thanks to C. Jarousse, those workshops were organized
in the village of Velaine -en-Haye (54840), near Nancy, France.
The 'Arelia Association', a manager for major migrants at the
Velaine specialized lodging site, provided a large room to allow
cultural exchanges between the two populations of migrants which
are living in the same building.
On January 21 and 22, 2019,
about thirty aspiring artists came to express their dreams,
using painting and pigments, in this place made available by
the County Council of Meurthe et Moselle and by the State. They
were able to release their emotions through their drawings and
paintings, to express the vision of their new life, to exorcise
happy and unhappy memories.
Those two days were supported
by the solidarity of a lot of volunteers from Velaine who already
helped by teaching a perfect French to the migrants through
language classes, and who provided material, assistance, and
food.
The Town Hall of Velaine-en-Haye
proposed to exhibit the drawings and paintings in its premises.
During a special day organized by the Association 'Active Citizenship',
on March 16, 2019, the President of the County Council –
a partner of that day – accepted to show this exhibition
in the premises of the Departmental Council, probably at the
end of 2019.
In addition, Jean -François
Clément, an anthropolgist, an art critic, a former teacher
of philosophy, and an Unesco advisor, interpreted these twenty
paintings and drawings by giving them a multidimensional reading.
In front of the enthusiasm of
the young minor migrants during those two days – they
felt they were integrated by a part of the local population
– the responsibles of the unaccompanied minors and asylum
seekers decided to make this experience again at the end of
the scholar year, in June 2019.
The following report (French
version) details the management, the organization, the progress
and the results of this project based on hospitality and integration.
Watch
the tableaux made by migrants through this link
[PDF] | Read the report
[PDF]