Journeys

Description

EXPLORA is part of an exciting new European collaboration project, JOURNEYS, which celebrates the talents of refugee artists and delivers powerful strands of artistic activity to widen understanding of refugee experiences. The aim is to facilitate the integration of refugees through the arts and culture.

JOURNEYS is a partnership project led by UK based cultural development agency ArtReach, and is a development from its successful Journeys Festival International project now being delivered in three UK cities.

Along with EXPLORA the other JOURNEYS partners are CESIE and Altonale GmbH with 2 associated partners, Trafo (House of Contemporary Arts) in Budapest and the City of Rieti in Italy.

During 2017 three important strands of work will be delivered in Palermo, Rome and Rieti, Budapest, Hamburg, Leicester, Manchester and Portsmouth:

• Look-Up is a high profile outdoor art exhibition presenting visual art work from refugee artists on a large canvas in each city;
• The Container Project involves creation of pop-up theatre performances and the making and screening of short new moving image productions to share refugee stories;
• Journeys Seminars bring together artists, with refugee support groups and the wider public, to explore ideas and issues arising from the arts activity and its themes.

In particular, EXPLORA will deliver the strands from 27th March to 21st April, in collaboration with:

• ArteStudio, is on display with Play on the beach, a theatre play by Riccardo Vannuccini, performed by professional actors and a group of CARA (Centres of Reception for Asylum Seekers) guests. ArteStudio has been committed for years to offer workshops and theatre plays, actively promoting the integration of refugees and asylum seekers;
• Takoua Ben Mohamed is on show with the “Behind the veil” exhibition, at Explora on April 21st. This event will follow the exhibition in the Sala Consiliare of the Municipality of Rieti, and an art workshop to get familiar with the art of comics. It’s not difficult to see that the very same girl is actually the author herself: “As a child, I used to watch cartoons and draw them, then I watched them again and drew them again. This is how I started to draw. I went on like this till my father, when I was 14 years old, suggested that I should draw a story about my work as an activist with a humanitarian organisation for junior volunteers”. Takoua Ben Mohamed was born in Douz (Tunisia) in 1991 and grew up in Rome. Graphic journalist and scriptwriter, she draws and writes comic strips based on true stories of several social issues, including immigration and human rights. At the age of 14 she created “il fumetto intercultura”, as a tool for integration and intercultural dialogue, thanks to her studies in journalism and to her activism in youth associations, cultural and humanitarian voluntary works. She collaborates with Italian and foreign universities, schools and associations and she actively participates in conferences and exhibitions;

Sibomana, has made for Explora Children of the sea, on display in the area in front of the museum’s entrance hall. The work focuses on the faces of ten children who are accommodated in a centre for asylum seekers on the outskirts of Rome. Sibomana’s technique makes use of black and white photographs and bright colour painting. The message is clear: educating people to integration, reminding that all children have a right to be happy. Sibomana, of Italian-Belgian origin from his mother and Congolese from his father, defines himself as a “urban activist”. The message of his artworks is clear: to educate people on integration between different cultures. With the project “Waves of the heroes”, initiated in 2015, he draws posters on immigration in the main cities of the migrant routes: Lesvos, Athens, Rome, Berlin and Istanbul.