Refugee Art Project
Artist Bio
Refugee Art Project is a not-for-profit community art organisation that has facilitated art workshops for people of an asylum seeker or refugee background in the Villawood detention centre and in the Western Sydney community since early 2011.
Artist Statement
We have collaborated with a large number of culturally and linguistically diverse participants from such countries as Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, the Kurdish regions of the Middle East, Syria, Sri Lanka, Burma, Pakistan, and other places.
The artworks produced within our workshops are curated and shown in public exhibitions, online and in self-published zines, to educate the Australian community and challenge the misconceptions that surround the refugee issue. Refugee Art Project aims to facilitate the agency and self expression of asylum seekers and refugees, activating art in the struggle for social justice.
The studio where we meet and create art is located in Ashfield, which is the traditional land of Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora nation. Villawood is located on the traditional land of the Gandangara people. We offer our respects to their elders, past and present, acknowledging that sovereignty was never ceded.