Past Community Creative Projects

“Imagine the UK as a big puzzle, where every piece tells the story of someone searching for safety and hope. In the workshop Finding Home, we, like puzzle pieces, found ourselves together, sharing the same dream of rebuilding our lives with courage and resilience. Finding where we fit seemed natural, it was incredibly moving to see how, through empathy and connections, we could lift each other up, share hope, create bonds finding a new family in the process. This experience was like discovering a new home through the journey of learning and coming together, where our diverse paths joined into a beautiful picture of belonging and new beginnings. It was like a puzzle coming together piece by piece making a beautiful picture, the same way the power of learning and education can create a place where we all feel we belong, no matter where we come from.” - Sanctuary Scholar from the University of East Anglia

A groundbreaking project, led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) Sanctuary Initiative and King’s College London Sanctuary Programme, united 17 students and academics from 9 UK universities with backgrounds of forced displacement to explore concepts around Home in higher education when seeking sanctuary.The project was developed in collaboration with the University of Warwick, the University of Essex, Oxford Brookes University, Bristol University, the University of Bath, the University of Cardiff, Newcastle University,Counterpoints Arts, the University of Sanctuary network, Student Action for Refugees (STAR), and the Open Learning Initiative (OLIve).

The project drew upon the theme for Refugee Week 2024 of“Our Home” by exploring ideas of belonging and sanctuary in UK universities through a two-day participatory arts workshop held on the 3rd and 4th February at King’s College London and led by renowned artists Majid Adin and Dana Olarescu​

A series of posters were created by the workshop attendees which explored their lived experiences of being forcibly displaced, and the role that higher education can play when on a journey in search of sanctuary. The posters powerfully illustrate concepts of loss alongside hope and the challenges of access to, alongside the life changing impacts of, higher education.

The posters were exhibited across UK universities, art institutions, community organisations and schools from March 2024 onwards and were accompanied by a short film produced during the workshop by Red 7 Films.

This project was made possible through the generous support of the Necessity Network, Duolingo English Testand Oxford ELLT all of whom are committed advocates for education and social inclusion. Their support underscores the shared vision of promoting positive change through the arts and creativity.

Families Beyond Boundaries is a mixed-media community art project that explores loss and the impact of being split from family and friends - whilst also exploring concepts of being united and standing together when apart.

The project is jointly led by Ukrainian academic Olga Sovenko (Honorary Lecturer, School of Art, Media and American Studies) and the UEA University of Sanctuary team.

Through the mediums of screen-printing and photography, the project aims to represent Ukrainian families that have been divided by war and forced to live in different parts of the world. Each family member photographed will be visually united by the clothing they are wearing - a unique homemade screen-printed t-shirt. Whilst the backdrop of the photographs will depict two different parts of the world, the screen-printed t-shirts will unite the families and visually symbolise the connection that remains no matter how many miles lay between them.

Families Beyond Boundaries Screen-printing Workshop and Exhibition

On 14th May 2023 (Mother's day in Ukraine), 12 Ukrainian families who are currently based in the UK came together to undertake the first stage of the project, a group t-shirt screen-printing workshop.

All attendees have loved ones who remain in Ukraine, many of which have not having seen their family members since the war started in spring 2022.

During the 3-hours session, participants were supported to create unique stencil designs which they then screen-printed onto t-shirts, with each attendee printing t-shirts for family members in both the UK and Ukraine. The t-shirts were then posted to the family members who remain in Ukraine. Each package also included a handwritten note on a postcard designed by Ukrainian artist, Olha Shamrai.

The second stage of the project involved attendees photographing themselves in their screen-printed t-shirts. The photographs went on to be exhibited during UEA Refugee Week 2024 from 4-31 March in The Enterprise Centre Foyer, University of East Anglia.

Further information on co-lead Olga Sovenko

Olga Sovenko is a sociologist who joined the University of East Anglia in spring 2022 as an honoury lecturer in the School of Art, Media and American Studies. In February 2023, she was awarded a research fellowship through the British Academy. Olga's main research project is dedicated to exploring Ukrainian families' lives under the threat of war and other challenges. Olga is working with families who have been internally displaced alongside those who are seeking sanctuary outside of Ukraine.

The UEA University of Sanctuary initiative worked in partnership with Ukrainian academic Olga Sovenko (Honorary Lecturer, School of Art, Media and American Studies) to produce Rediscovering Home, a short film which intimately follows the stories of four individuals as they navigate forced displacement. The film aims to explore what it means to leave everything behind, start again, and rediscover the meaning of “home.”

Rediscovering Home was screened during national Refugee Week 2024 at Norwich Cinema City and has since been shown at local and national community events.

For more information on the project, please email: university.of.sanctuary@uea.ac.uk

The Suitcase is an innovative and original student led art project which explores the concepts of loss and belonging through the eyes of sanctuary seekers from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, Türkiye and Egypt.

The Suitcase exhibition ran from 3-10 March 2023 . Visitors were invited to connect with six stories of displacement through five suitcases located on plinths around the campus. Each suitcase told the story of a sanctuary seeker through the objects they had to leave behind, alongside those precious things that could be saved, like a small bag of soil from Afghanistan – one sanctuary seeker’s tangible connection to a lost homeland.

Each suitcase displayed a QR code which visitors were invited to use to access short films, by Red 7 Productions, which detailed the sanctuary seekers’ lived experiences, their journeys to Norwich, and the emotive reasons for the objects they chose to share.

The Suitcase is the brainchild of Anastasiia Petrenko (Ana), a Ukrainian student studying MA International Development at UEA. Ana is one of the 2022-23 cohort of Sanctuary Scholars, who received a scholarship as part of UEA’s commitment to helping reduce the barriers to participation in higher education faced by those seeking sanctuary in the UK. The Suitcase was developed alongside other Sanctuary Scholars from a range of other countries, including Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt and Türkiye.

Please note, the Suitcase films below may be traumatising to some audiences.

The Suitcase. Chapter I