Image: Aida Silvestri, Even This Will Pass, 2013/14
Our mission at Counterpoints Arts is to support and produce art by and about migrants and refugees. We seek to ensure that their contributions are recognized and welcomed within British arts, history, and culture. This starts with safe arrival and straightforward routes to stability once in the UK. We have seen recently how this is possible when both public opinion and state processes are a) welcoming and b) reflect why and how people are moving.
War is one of the many reasons people move en masse and in the case of Ukraine, the UK has moved quickly to respond through huge outpourings of public compassion and support. The government rolled out a housing scheme made possible only because the public wants it to be possible. The government matched pound-for-pound £25 million donations from the public and launched a visa scheme for Ukrainian nationals. But, at present, the scheme is for Ukrainians, or the immediate family member of a Ukrainian national.
Schemes specifically for Ukrainian nationals do not serve all people fleeing war. They don’t even serve all people fleeing the war in Ukraine, as highlighted by artists from Refraction Festival supporting Black people in Ukraine. While the difference in refugees’ experiences involves complex geopolitics, we must not let those complexities obfuscate the fact that the lack of safe and effective avenues for refugees of colour to reach the UK is racist. This is highlighted by the new Nationality and Borders Bill which, according to Médecins Sans Frontières, will make the UK “one of the most anti-refugee countries in the world”. The Bill discriminates against people seeking asylum, particularly towards people of colour, who constitute the majority of refugees and have historically been marginalised by the UK’s crisis response and media representations.
The art world plays a vital role in confronting racism and discrimination head-on and must continue to do so. As artists have expressed time and again, the impact of war on people from non-European countries (such as Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, or Yemen, for example) is no less violent or destabilising. See for instance Aida Silvestri’s unforgettable Even This Will Pass, which depicts the journeys and experiences of Eritrean refugees into the UK. Or Lowkey’s galvanising song Ahmed, which exposes the role of both the state and the public in the fate of refugees. JJ Bola’s poem Refuge captures one of Counterpoints core beliefs: displacement is both traumatic and transformative.
At Counterpoints we acknowledge what artists have been communicating for millennia: migration is nothing new. It shapes who we are and who we might become. Creativity and the arts offer a visceral way of sharing the hardships and challenges of displacement, from wherever in the world that might be. But the arts can also be a powerful way of celebrating the creativity and resilience of migrants and refugees. By exploring the complexity of all forms of migration, and how it impacts on our sense of belonging and identity, we can harness the richness that comes from it.
Counterpoints Arts plays a vital role in enabling artists, expanding our understanding of migration and stretching our imaginations about how we can respond to displacement. The theme of this year’s Refugee Week (20-26 June 2022) is ‘Healing’. Through creativity and conversations, the festival will be a celebration of community, mutual care and the human ability to start again. Through Refugee Week, and our many other events and productions, Counterpoints will endeavour to create space to explore and reflect on the tragedy of people fleeing Ukraine. But, through our productions and commissions we will also continue to stress the message that we should extend a warm and inclusive welcome to all refugees, no matter where in the world they have come from.
