14-20 June is Refugee Week and we are sharing a short clip from our multi-media installation, Songlines. The language being used by the government and the media, dehumanises and is harmful to people seeking asylum. The right to seek a place of safety is being threatened by the government. We stand in solidarity with people seeking asylum. Songlines holds the often ignored and excluded voices of women and children seeking asylum, their human right.
Songlines is a beautiful multi-media installation created from interviews and conversations with women from minority communities living in the North East. Through discussions on the sea and other places, they shared stories of their childhood and home, leaving people and places behind and of their new lives in the North East of England.
The piece was developed in collaboration with 26 women from minority communities from Byker Sands Centre – Sure Start East, Open Door North East and West End Women & Girls Centre, working alongside photographer Phyllis Christopher Photography , visual artist Taryn Edmonds and filmmaker Kate Sweeney.
This installation is the final phase of Open Clasp’s A Song To Sing project which informed the play The Space Between Us bringing the truth of experiences of women who are Czech/Roma, Slovak/Roma, Travellers, women seeking asylum, those who are refused and experiencing destitution and Arabic women, from Libya, Syria and Kuwait to a wide audience.
For more information, facts and truths not myths on asylum, please visit the Refugee Council
#TogetherWithRefugees
