Miream Salameh uses folded paper boats to remind her listeners of the fragility of a refugees’ escape to Australia.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Syrian woman is hosting artist workshops this week at the Warrnambool Art Gallery as part of school’s program focusing on multiculturalism.
Ms Salameh will share her own escape from Syria to Lebanon and finally Melbourne and what home means to her as a political refugee.
“It doesn’t matter where you’re from If you feel like you belong you can contribute to society,” she said.
Through her ‘A Place Called Home’ workshops Ms Salameh will invite young people to create paper boats that will be hung in the gallery space.
“We will create some art that will represent the people who flee their country and come by boat to this country for freedom.
“It’s like what we feel like in our home and then in another place.”
The arts student who also works as an Arabic translator will share her own experiences of fleeing persecution.
With her friends, Ms Salameh founded a magazine translated as ‘Justice’ in which they documented Assad abuses in the city of Homs.
She was forced to leave her homeland after regime forces made threats of rape, arrest and murder against her, looting and destroying most of her artwork.
With her three remaining artworks, she fled her homeland to Lebanon in 2012 and came to Australia in 2013 as refugee.
Ms Salameh's artwork addresses issues of social justice, freedom and the suffering of the Syrian people.
Her one-hour free sessions will be held at the Warrnambool Art Gallery August 15 to 17.