Refugees at IWM – Filling in the gaps
The exhibition includes refugees from a wide range of contexts – the Second World War, Iraq, and Afghanistan, although it still wasn’t comprehensive. For instance, I didn’t notice that it included any from Palestine. What it shows is that all of these refugees are victims. All looked similar to me: they had all lived in camps, fled their own country, and suffered on the journey to arrive at a safe place. Some of them lost their loved ones. The exhibition makes you wonder about how they lived: how did they eat in the camp? Some samples of food in the camp are represented. How did they travel in those horrible conditions? In pictures of when they arrive, they look miserable. But that’s not all. Some of them, the exhibition shows, are really talented. The kids would like to be educated.
Highlights of the exhibition included a graph showing how many wars there have been all over the world and how many people fled. It showed both old wars, and ones that are still continuing. It is sad. There was also Iraqi Kurdish artwork from Shorsh Saleh, including handwoven carpets; and Majid Adin’s film Dear Habib, about an Afghani man who came to UK, which I particularly liked, and in which the desire for education came across strongly. Another excellent piece was Life in a Camp - a film about life in Moria refugee camp. It really shows you how life in the camp is, telling the story of people who lost their home in the camp because of a fire. You live in very poor conditions; there is lots of dirt around you. The film is both emotional and educational.
‘Departure’ by Shorsh Saleh (2019) - a male figure wearing a backpack flies on a magic carpet over a landscape of broken buildings and glowering dark mountains
There are things that give an incomplete impression: in the pictures, refugees are always represented as women and children. However, actually there are lots of men who are refugees. There was a graph that shows the UK immigration system, but there are important things missing from it. For example, some of the options and possibilities for refused asylum seekers haven't been included, and therefore nor is any sense of what this is like. It doesn’t cover the option of doing a fresh claim. This is a process that can take years, first years to collect new evidence, and then lots more years waiting for the Home Office to answer. The appeal system can take years as well, from first-tier tribunal to higher-tier then first-tier again, and so on. This doesn’t come across. Another thing the graph doesn’t address adequately is detention. It doesn’t explain that detention can last for up to 3 years in some cases, and it appears in the graph as though detention is only used for deportation. In reality, many people are detained in the UK then eventually released again. Then, they could have refugee status later on and become British.
Overall, it is really nice exhibition. It shows the similarity of the refugee through different eras. It may change the negative picture that the government and the media have given the British public.
With thanks to Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS UK) for their support in publishing this article.
Header image shows a timeline panel used in the exhibition: ‘This timeline shows some of the many conflicts that have taken place over the past 100 years or so and the approximate number of people displaced. These numbers are contested in some cases.’
This is one of four contributions to our round table on the Forced to Flee exhibition. The introduction, including links to all the contributions, can be found here.
