Artrooms 2016 is presenting ‘Refuge’, an exhibition curated and hosted by Le Dame Art Gallery. The exhibition puts together new tech and visual arts using different approaches, various voices, film, photography, sculpture and instillation for a group of international artists to respond to the recent migrant crisis. The London based videography team, SpheresVR have created an exceptional project to be shown in REFUGE. They have documented the landing in Europe of incoming refugees. Using gyroscopic 360-degree immersive video and Oculus Rift technology, guests will be invited to ‘experience’ the condition and plight of the migrant. This form of technology has revolutionised the art world more comprehensively than any other medium before.
Works displayed within REFUGE require the participation of the viewer. This is an exhibition to be experienced, not just observed. REFUGE will encourage you to empathise and contemplate. You will be left mesmerised having gained a new depth of insight and understanding. Find yourself transported to Lesvos and Greece through ARTROOMS 2016 very special, entirely immersive exhibition experience, REFUGE. The project is in support of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) a dedicated charity saving lives at sea by providing professional search and rescue to people who are in distress.
EXHIBITING ARTISTS
1. ESTABRAK Al-Ansari, Iraq a London raised, Iraqi (former) refugee. She is a visual artist and filmmaker. Estabrak has exhibited in renowned galleries including the TATE Britain, and has won a prize for her underwater photographic series ‘Omanius Under Water.’ Her work examines the relationship between the body, the self, dress, movement, conformity, and the taboo concepts of sexuality, privilege, oppression, power, and understanding.
2. Evar Hussayini, Sweden a multi-disciplinary artist from West Kurdistan. Her mixed media techniques explore space, shape and form through depictions of the female body and face. She highlights the way in which identity is affected by surroundings, memory, and culture. Hussayini dismantles social stigmas, which reducing women to specific, rigid archetypes. Studying woman in war zones, from the religiously rebellious, to the culturally conventional, from the veiled to the unveiled, Hussayini honours women in all their diversity.
3. Manja McCade, Germany a young German artist. Her style is innovative, colourful, and dynamic. It responds to recent refugee crisis, bringing to life the reality of what many refugees go through in seeking sanctuary. McCade’s work ‘Nowhere To Go’ will feature in the exhibition. ‘Nowhere To Go’ is a pictorial representation of the Syrian refugee crisis. It speaks of no strength in numbers and of the sacrifice of many vibrant human beings at the behest of supposed paternalistic, pretenders.
4. ZOLT ASTA, HUNGARIA the artist constructs brave and thought-provoking installations, which investigate the role of the human soul in today’s technocratic society. His work belongs to a unique praxis of visual arts that explores the brutal traumas of the 20th and 21st century. Floating in an interminable space, his work exists in a matrix defined by a continued interaction between the past, the present, and the future.
5. ENRIQUE VERDUGO, AFGHANSTAN his photographs, installations, and films create a space for people to enjoy the power of audio-visual works. Verdugo’s work deals with the human body and its habitat. His compositions take on the form of ephemeral installations, using props to create fictional and disrupted narratives. He explores ‘Memory and Migration,’ through his film ‘Elinkine.’ He reflects on the perpetual need for a new start, the constant quest for a better and brighter economic future.
Le Dame Art Gallery at Meliá White House Hotel Albany ST Regent’s Park London, London NW1 3UP United Kingdom