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Unique event brings exiled artists together

South East England Directory for Arts and Refugees launched

Tuesday January 23 2007

A Bangladeshi poet, a Peruvian singer and a Congolese writer are some of the celebrated exiled artists performing at a unique event this Thursday (January 25).

Sofia Buchuk, the first Hispanic singer to perform at the Royal Opera House, will join published poet Mir Mahfuz Ali to launch The Directory for Arts and Refugees - South East England at Amnesty International’s Action Centre in London.

The directory, compiled by Refugee Action’s South East Regional Arts and Culture Refugee Project and jointly funded by The Arts Council, is the first comprehensive guide to the field of refugees and the arts. It lists musical, literary and visual arts organisations in the south east of England, as well as refugee community groups, council officers and funding bodies.

The launch will also feature a poetry performance by Jean-Louis N’Tadi, a Congolese refugee who wrote two volumes of his play L’acte de Naissance while held at Campsfield Immigration Detention Centre near Oxford.

Nathalie Teitler, community arts development officer at Refugee Action, said:

“All of the artists at this launch have been forced to leave their countries, sometimes because their work clashed with the oppressive regimes the
lived under. Despite this, they have rebuilt their lives and gone on to find success and recognition in the UK and beyond”

“This directory will give refugee artists in the south east all the information they need to contact relevant organisations in their field and find out about funding bodies, publishers and performance opportunities.”

Felicity Harvest, Arts Council England South East Executive Director said:

“The arts have the power to support refugees and asylum seekers as they adapt to their new lives, and in turn they help existing communities to understand and welcome the diverse cultures and experiences of refugees.

“This project is the result of a fruitful partnership between Refugee Action and The Arts Council. We’ve achieved so much since the partnership was established in 2004, commissioning research, organising events and co-funding a community arts officer at Refugee Action.”

The event will also mark the first day of a visual arts exhibition that will run for a week. It will include pieces by Mohammed Bushara, a Sudanese-born artist specialising in print work which has been exhibited at the British Museum, and by social-documentary photographer Karen Kessi Williams.

The launch, at New Inn Yard, Shoreditch, London E2, will begin at 4pm.

ENDS

For more information, or to request an interview or photographs, please call Julia Ravenscroft, press officer, on 0161 233 1956 or 07810 757 752 (out of hours).

Notes:

Directory for Arts and Refugees - South East England

Featured artists at the launch:

Mir Mahfuz Ali was born in Bangladesh. He is a poet, dancer and actor and an active member of Exiled Writers Iink in London. His work has been published in London Magazine and Ambit as well as various anthologies. A booklet of his work will be published by Ambit later this year and further poems in Poetry London and he hopes to publish his first full collection in the coming months. He is a regular reader at literature festivals and events and was invited to take part in the Poetry Festival at the South Bank this year.

Sofia Buchuck and the Andean band. The band is made up Sofia Buchuck, singer, Jose Navarro on charango, Carlos Saldania on panpipes, Moises on Keyboards and Martin on guitar. The band focuses on traditional Latin American music from the Andean area. Sofia has performed as a solo artist with her band at the International Fringe festival of Edinburgh, Festival del Pueblo - the biggest Latin American festival in London 2004, Thames festival and the Royal opera house 2005. Her second CD “Violets” has been recorded in her recent return to Peru-her home country, which has been presented at national television in Peru 2004.

Sofia is also a visual artist and has taken part in exhibitions in the Mosaic Festival for the Southwark Refugee Network and at the Café Gallery, Southwark.

Mohamed Bushara is a Sudanese born artist, specialising in print work. He was the oldest son of a non-political working class family and due to his protest art and activism in Sudan he had to leave in the early 1970s. He came to the UK in 1999 where he settled in Oxford with his family. His first solo exhibition was held at the British Council in Khartoum in 1974 and in 1975 he won a full British Council Scholarship to the Slade School of Fine Arts in London. Since then he has had exhibitions around the world, including the British Museum exhibition, Sudan Past and Present and a solo exhibition at Modern Arts Oxford entitled, A woman offering her child to silence.

In 2006 he took part in several prestigious exhibitions in France and has also had several solo shows in the UK. His work is both representational and abstract, combining aspects of Arab and African culture.

Abol Froushan is an Iranian poet and photographer. His work has been published in various anthologies and he is exhibited at Photoinsight, the web-based exhibition space/ journal. He has had performed at various venues including the Riverside Studio in Hammersmith, Lauderdale House, The Poetry Café and the National Poetry Society. He was Poet in Residence for the Outlook programme for BBC World Service.

Playwright and poet Jean-Louis N’Tadi was born in 1964 in Congo-Brazzaville. A political activist with the main opposition party and a Red Cross humanitarian worker, he was dubiously charged by the government with "trafficking information" and defamation in connection with the disappearance of 400 refugees in 1999 during the civil war in Congo Brazzaville. His works include the play Le Chef de l’Etat, a parable highly critical of the presidency of Sassou-Nguesso which has been performed in various venues in Brazzaville, the plays Vendu, Verve d’une Creature and Monsieur le Maire which were destroyed by the Brazzaville security services, and L’Acte de Naissance, two volumes written during his detention at Campsfield. He has a wife and six children in Congo-Brazzaville.
N'Tadi's new play Cries of the Cricket was performed on the London Eye on 21 June 2005 as part of a celebration of African culture in advance of the G8 summit in Scotland in July.

Karen Kessi Williams is a social-documentary photographer. She works primarily for charities, development agencies and international aid organisations specialising in development issues, mainly in Africa. Her work crosses the line between photo-journalism and fine-art and she has exhibited frequently throughout England the U.S. Represented by galleries in both countries, her method is simple and direct, working closely with her subjects in a collaborative manner, capturing real, fleeting moments of life whilst respecting their inherent dignity. Karen was recently short listed for the Observer Seeds of Change Photography Prize.

Refugee Action is an independent, national charity working to enable refugees to build new lives in the UK. We provide practical advice and assistance for newly arrived asylum seekers and long-term commitment to their settlement through community development work, and received 30,000 visits from asylum seekers last year. As one of the country’s leading agencies in the field, Refugee Action has 25 years’ experience in pioneering innovative work in partnership with refugees.
Arts Council England works to get more art to more people in more
places. We develop and promote the arts across England, acting as an
independent body at arms length from Government. Between 2006 and 2008 we will invest £1.1 billion of public money from Government and the National Lottery in supporting the arts.