Refugee Week 2023
GARETH STEVENS
This year’s Refugee Week in Hastings, Rother and Wealden will launch on Sunday 18 June at 18.00 at the Hastings Contemporary. The sheer span of the events and activities in the week (18-25 June) is so impressive and comprehensive – the programme stands testament to the commitment of its organisers and the drive of all those volunteers involved. More than that, having an emphasis on promoting leadership from the refugee community itself demonstrates the wonderful value that newly settled refugees bring to the culture of our borough. The week will raise the visibility of diversity in our creative community and support emerging talent.
Refugee Week is a national festival of locally produced events held around World Refugee Day on June 20. Its theme this year is ‘Compassion’. Initiated and steered by the umbrella organisation, Counterpoint Arts, 2023 is the 25 anniversary of the event, which now includes a growing number of international iterations including Australia, Greece, Hong Kong, Germany, Malta and South Africa.
This year, following financial support from Arts Council England, the Refugee Buddy Project (RBP) has commissioned four artists and invited submissions for a Creative Call to Action. The response has been overwhelming and over 40 artists, creative businesses and community spaces from across Hastings and St Leonards have come together to plan an extensive programme of participatory events. Major cultural spaces along the East Sussex coastline, including Hastings Contemporary, HMAG, the De La Warr Pavilion and Towner Eastbourne (working with the Devonshire Collective) will be hosting exhibitions and workshops during the week. Inclusion of these major venues marks a major upscaling of Refugee Week in the region.
The RBP says that the principle aim of the week is to “promote a show of solidarity and empathy for people who are displaced and seeking safety, while celebrating what compassion looks like in action, to a broad audience in the local community as well as summer visitors to our town.”
“There is something for everyone in the programme, from exhibitions, window displays and limited edition artworks, to creative workshops, talks, education projects, a pub quiz, bike ride and food events centred around the rich culinary traditions of the people who are making their home here.”
The programme of events has been sensitively planned to particularly focus on ensuring the voices and experiences of those seeking refuge are central. “Several featured artists have no recourse to public funds” the Refugee Buddy Project says “and will be given materials and publicity and support from local galleries, as we are not allowed to pay for their creative labour.”
Some of the Refugee Week highlights include a group show at Electro Studios (June 22-25) featuring internationally recognised artists Chloe Dewe Mathews and Chiara Fabbro, alongside young Syrian photographer Nour El Din. This show will also feature a sound work comprising the experiences and hopes of several of the men who found themselves moved to a spot hotel in Hastings after Manston Detention Centre was closed. Artist Jimena Pardo will be showing a selection of Chilean Arpillera works Arpillerando el Exilio at the Nest and has begun a new collective textile work Compassion is a Verb that will be developed with users of Eggtooth support services, and will then remain at the Nest for visitors to the café to add to. The list of events is just too exhaustive to mention here, but please see the full programme shown elsewhere in this issue.
Considering why Refugee Week is so important to a coastal community like Hastings, Chloe Dewe Mathews, one of the event’s commissioned artists, says, ”Away from the skewed agendas of government and the media, these events and exhibitions become a space for discussion and contemplation, for people who want to learn from each other and find ways to express their support for refugees and people seeking sanctuary.”
Rossana Leal (Founder & CEO) and Alex Kempton (Director of Operations and Campaigns) from The Refugee Buddy Project recently represented Hastings at a summit in Athens on the Arts, Integration and Refugees. They attended as delegates of Counterpoint Arts, shared their experiences and gave a presentation on how they strive to create a culture of welcome through the arts, food and solidarity in the borough. Inter Alia, an Athens-based NGO that works to inspire social change through supporting artistic and cultural expression are sending a delegation to Hastings to host a discussion of best practice during Refugee Week.
To find out more about refugee week go to: therefugeebuddyproject.org
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply