STORIES OF MIGRATION, SETTLEMENT AND RESILIENCE

One of the “Suitcases of Resilience” by Esen Bahram is among the art on exhibit in Personal Narratives: Stories of Migration, Settlement and Resilience currently on at the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre. The suitcases are designs expressing and exploring the resilience demanded and found by these artists in their migration and settlement to a new Canadian home. Elements in each suitcase have a symbolic significance unique to the experience of the artist. INSIDE Story and photos from Personal Narratives: Stories of Migration

SUITCASES FILLED WITH small, personalized items that form a narrative; a mobile of birds with inscriptions; video of a group working together to create a large mandala; and 12 minutes of human generated sounds blended into one cohesive soundscape. These are immigrant stories told through art installations on display at the The Workers Arts and Heritage Centre.

The exhibit, titled “Personal Narratives: Stories of Migration, Settlement and Resilience,” showcases pieces from the (Nu) Links program — a pilot program operating out of Centre(3) that provides free creative workshops led by artists for newcomers to Canada. The program is a partnership between Centre(3), Wesley Urban Ministries and the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre, with funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

Over the course of five consecutive Saturdays starting in May, participants took part in workshops to create pieces to show how migration and settlement had affected them. In addition to newcomers, the workshops were also open to settlement workers and Indigenous and Canadianborn community workers.

(Nu)Links co-ordinator Hitoko Okada said including settlement and community workers was important since many are immigrants and the ones who are not could share their perspective with the group from the other side.

Through the process of sharing their stories, participants could “learn to be heard and seen and valued for (their) stories”, said Okada, who described this sharing process as “unifying” for the group. The main goal was “to use the art to create and build bridges in the community for newcomers.”

Participants used video, sound and tactile techniques to create pieces that communicated their experiences with migration and settlement from different perspectives of the journey. Each piece was tackled in one of the weekly workshops led by different artists.

The pieces are currently on display at the Workers’ Arts and Heritage Centre on Stuart Street in Hamilton, until Aug. 17.

JOHN RENNISON THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR Artists in the exhibit include, clockwise centre top, Sharon Trottier, Nuor Nawabeet, Nrinder Nann, Beverly Horton and Esen Bahram. Personal Narratives is on display at the Workers’ Arts and Heritage Centre now.

Telling immigrant stories through collage.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SCOTT GARDNER, THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR This bird, which is part of a larger mobile of similar pieces, was decorated by Hitoko Okada, one of the lead artists for the Personal Narratives.

One of the suitcases, left, by Sharon Trottier.

A colorful collage, right, by Maria Eugenia Lemus Valenzuela.

A collage by JoJo Harley at the Workers’ Arts and Heritage Centre.

A more modern and contemporary-looking collage by Sharon Trottier.

One of the suitcases in Personnel Narratives is by participant artist Esen Bahram.

This one is by Nuor Nawabeet. The stars in the box represent those in the night sky.