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Date Posted: 2003-11-04 15:18:21
Thanks rebecca for your support. It certainly is clear that most detainees are under alot of pressure- some cope better than others. The more I am involved, the more personal the stories, the more I feel for their situation. Most people around them try to do the best for them, - it is the underlying situation that is so difficult.
I think it took us 40 mins to get inside on Saturday.- too many art materials!
If any people are in contact with detainees, please be consistent. One woman said something like 'yes it is nice to have people who are interested in your stories. But they come into your life and then suddenly disappear.'
Many of them have been in detention for 3 years.
The things that touched me this workshop-
- one woman's amazing story of a 3 year, perilous boat journey to get here
- one young woman's poetry about detention
- when I asked how much gear they could take with them on the boats one young man replied ' what, when you have to leave your home in this way do you think you have time to pack!'
The quality of the people we come into contact with continues to amaze me.The single men are articulate, often highly educted, unfailingly polite, quite formal and crisply dressed. The discussions we have often become philosophical- the inscriptions that they decorate their work with have that beautiful poetic/philosophical nature common in the arabic world.
ART OUTCOMES
We introduced mosaics - many half finished works by the time we left; We were told that they could work on them when we are not there.
Also papercasting - showing how their claywork last week could become a paper cast.
Much drawing and painting.
IMAGES
Many, many images of boats - reflecting the often terrifying journeys that they had endured
Building of houses, animals from homeland of clay
Clay tablet illustrating poem
More calligraphy
PROBLEMS
The greatest problem that I see at the moment is finding a community, a community that has a cohesive voice.
It is a structural problem. There are six compounds- that are not allowed to mix, even in the workshops. So groups of 6-8 are brought in to the art area then sent back. Another group comes. The following week half of that group is replaced with new people. There is little continuity. We have to explain the project again and again. The end point is quite abstract.
It is nothing like a mural project, where everyone comes, works on this ever-growing mural, talks, has fun
feels part of something greater, makes joint decisions about the direction of the artwork, makes new contacts and goes home again.
We'll have to work on this somehow.
Anyway to finish - the men were horrified when I told them that I don't speak my mother's tongue. Absolutely incredulous.
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