Global to Local Narratives Exhibit - Refugee Art
Narrative art therapy using encaustic painting technique
Fragile and So Strong
“Fragile and So Strong” includes the work of refugee youth, a program developed by Amineh Ayyad. The purpose of this project is to provide a safe space and skills for refugee youth to strengthen their resilience and tell their stories, and to promote healing and peace through art.
Amineh uses a unique mixed-media encaustic painting technique, which she first learned about through a workshop with Jewish-American artist Janet Nechama Miller based in Seattle. Ayyad and Miller's work is on display as part of this exhibit. Ayyad and Miller use encaustic painting methods to portray their own expressions about the Israeli and Palestinian conflict and history. The encaustic technique, which employs pigmented melted beewax, has been dated to as early as the fourth century B.C. Although wax may appear to be a fragile material, it is a strong and beautiful method to express the various dimensions of one's narrative through layering of mixed media. The diverse materials used allow participants to include maps and copies of old family photos, letters and other items they've collected or brought from their native countries.
Amineh Ayyad
Amineh Ayyad is Palestinian-American UW graduate, public health worker, filmmaker and artist. Amineh’s work and research interests include international understanding and peacebuilding through health and cultural and art exchange programs. She is currently working on a Peace Through Health collaborative training curriculum for community health workers in Palestine. Amineh founded and directs Adapt International, a nonprofit organization that aims to design, deliver and evaluate community-based psychosocial interventions serving refugee mothers & youth through health and art programs both in Seattle and in the Middle East.
Amineh’s current art projects include the Muslim Peace Mosaic, a project bringing together Muslim artists from around the globe. She also will be launching the annual Intercultural and Intergenerational Community Storytelling Festival in Seattle in October 2010, an initiative to discover common humanity, awaken compassion and nurture cultural diversity in the Greater Seattle area.
Amineh grew up in Syria and Kuwait, and worked & traveled extensively throughout the West Bank and Gaza in various years, and during the Israeli armed incursions in 2002. She studied economics and public health at University of Washington.
Janet Nechama Miller
In the spring of 2006, Janet Nechama Miller visited Israel and the West Bank for the first time. She spent about a month there, talking with and learning from as many people as possible. She met Israeli Jews, Arab Israelis, Israeli soldiers, Palestinian human rights workers and students, solidarity workers from different countries, people with dual citizenship, and people who are required to stay in one area, separated from family and community by force. She was told stories of resiliency that she could hardly believe, and she was exposed to realities that she is still struggling to comprehend.
Janet's two paintings, “Hope: How? (view from the Israel/Palestine separation wall)” and “Dear Golan Heights, now that we have met, I have so much more to learn” are the beginning of her body of work, “a history of walls.” This series of paintings explores the endless layers of complexities involved with the current issues of occupation and land conflict in Israel/Palestine.
As a Jewish, anti-occupation, anti-violence artist and educator, creating these works has raised many personal and global questions for Janet; allowing her to deepen her understanding of her place within a social justice movement, in which art is a tool for expression, education, and liberation.
Janet's work
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5/16/2012 12:53:43 PM