At the end of February 2016, I met with my dear friend Anna Klitggard to discuss a paper we are writing together. It is about the journey that so many of the asylum seekers and economic migrants were making through Europe from Greece before the border with Macedonia was ‘officially’ closed. Anna has been deeply engaged with the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ as an activist and journalist. At that point in time I had not been particularly active. I had however been particularly distraught both by the wars and conflicts happening around the world, and by the shameful actions and inaction by the European Union and its member states.
I am a social scientist and graduate with my PhD in social policy and migration in 2015. I made a decision that to continue in the university system doing research that has very little impact on the less privileged or less advantaged in society was not for me, but I was not ready to close the door on academia completely. I established a company Global Europeans after graduation and I have been fortunate to get ample paid work while thinking about the direction that I would like my post-doctoral future to take.
In addition to the conversations I had with Anna and other friends, it was the work of Zahr Meer—a friend of Anna’s and a member of Immigrant Art—that was the catalyst for the Immigrant Art initiative. As fortune would have it Zahr’s partner Saif Aldeen Tahhan is a talented web designer. I contacted Saif, we discussed my ideas and he set to work on creating a website and logo while I developed the concept and began to engage the creative talents within my network who I thought may be interested in supporting the initiative.
Three months on and the initiative is in full swing. All of us involved are working in our spare time to make Immigrant Art a success. I would like to say a special thank you to Anna Klitgaard who is without a doubt one of the most talented, personable and engaged people I know; Saif Aldeen Tahhan for working so hard on the website in the middle of revision time, praktik time, all the time (!!); Mads Nygaard for sharing news about the initiative with his network and connecting me with Hannah Kousholt who is extremely engaged, enthusiastic and kind; Katna for her loyalty, friendship and honesty regarding her participation; Felicity Willetts and Louise Whiteley for their encouragement, friendship and expertise in so many different areas; Inga-Lill Blomkvist, our ‘woman-in-Sweden’, who is thinking of us all the time and so active in connecting us with various institutions over there; Angelique Sanossain, Susanna Inkinen, Behnaz Fazeli, Zahr Mee, Anne Brostrøm Storgaard and Juliá Machado for their enthusiasm and creative input, and Bernd Wunsch and Tomé Jorge for being there when I have needed them. Last-but-not-least, thank you to the rest of the (today) 188 members of Immigrant Art, who I look forward to engaging with in the days, months and hopefully years to come!
We have a core group of members who are meeting up every couple of weeks to plan individual projects and discuss the organization and funding of the initiative. If you have any input or insights that you would like to share, we would love to hear from you!
Have a fantastic week!
