Western Sahara Refugee Camps
Camp Boujdour, outside of Tindouf, Algeria
The Western Saharawi community in the refugee camps located near Tindoof, Algeria, is committed to working with arts and culture as a tool for personal expression, collective identity and community development. Our first visit to work with this community took place in 2013 as part of the ARTifariti Festival. We returned in 2014 to continue our work with a focus on fostering a range of capabilities via the arts with children at the local primary school.
Since 2016 our work has continued at a distance by way of partnerships including with Mohamed Sleiman Labat and Motif Art Studio. We share below our projects from 2013 to 2016. Check out Motif to see more about the work of Sleiman Labat.
Since 2016 our work has continued at a distance by way of partnerships including with Mohamed Sleiman Labat and Motif Art Studio. We share below our projects from 2013 to 2016. Check out Motif to see more about the work of Sleiman Labat.
Our art partners from Camp Boujdour Primary School!
2015 - 2016 When The Sun Came for Them
When the Sun Came for Them, a joint ArtsAction Group and Shared Roots project, documents a series of interviews with the Saharawi people living in the Saharawi refugee camps outside of Tindouf, Algeria. They share their remarkable history, their poetic life style and their strong morals. It is a powerful and unique movie, which not only preserves the Saharawi people’s personal and cultural history but also documents what it means to be a “state-less” person. The film is a human rights plea to the world. When the Sun Came for Them is a timely and important film. All was shot by a crew of three recent college graduates and one of their professors on two iPads. It is true backpack journalism. To date the film has garnered several awards including:
- Human Rights Silver Aware, World Human Rights Festival in Jakarta
- Award of Merit, World Documentary Festival in Jakarta
- Certificate of Merit, International New York Film Festival
- Special Jury Award, Barcelona International Film Festival
2014 Outside My Window and Shared Roots
Outside My Window: This year we did two projects as part of our participation in ARTifariti. We brought the large-scale Body Maps created by our partners at Fell-Bach Haus in Suhareka, Kosovo and at Adelphi University on Long Island to the festival. This artwork was used to introduce the project to a group of 4th graders at the Primary School in Camp Boujdour. We started the work with a discussion about the symbols, colors and imagery found on the Kosovar and USA Body Maps. The children then broke into teams of three to design and complete their own Body Maps - mixed-media large scale artworks that express the experiences, hopes and dreams of these children.
Hard at work!
Knowledge, skills and capabilities fostered in the work include:
- working in teams to collaboratively solve visual problems linked to personal and group expression
- introduction to and practice of the use of a variety of art materials including oil & chalk pastels, collage, painting and working with color
- translating ideas, experiences and hopes/feelings into visual imagery and symbols
- introduction to the community of Suhareka, Kosovo via the Body Maps artwork.
- Experiencing the joy and play of personal and collective expression via the arts.
2014 Outside My Window
Shared Roots: AtsAction Group teamed up with the Shared Roots Project, a creation of Terrence Ross at Adelphi University. We worked with interested individuals and families to create profiles of an ancestor - using narratives, poetry, and in some cases, photographs.
These stories and images will be uploaded to SharedRoots.net, to be seen by people around the world. As Enas Elmohand, a member of ArtsAction Group put it, "history runs like a brook through the rich forest of time, negligent of the songs of individual birds." ArtsAction Group and the Shared Roots project worked with the Sahrawi community to add the songs of their ancestors to the recorded symphony of our collective history.
These stories and images will be uploaded to SharedRoots.net, to be seen by people around the world. As Enas Elmohand, a member of ArtsAction Group put it, "history runs like a brook through the rich forest of time, negligent of the songs of individual birds." ArtsAction Group and the Shared Roots project worked with the Sahrawi community to add the songs of their ancestors to the recorded symphony of our collective history.
Fatima Mohamed Mahmua Buda (right) and her daughter share stories of the husband/father.
The father and family in the Western Sahara prior to fleeing to the camps.
2013 Water Stories and Play
A trip Camp El-Aaiun
Water Stories: Our first trip to the Western Sahrawi refugee camps outside of Tindouf, Algeria was to produced and roll out a combined arts and public health initiative organized by ArtsAction Group in partnership with the Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation (CELF), PackH20, and the Association for Friendship with the Saharawi People of Seville (AAPSS).
For this project we designed a series of arts activities as a means of introducing PackH2o to the refugee community in Camp Boujdour during the ARTifariti Arts Festival that took place November 2 through November 8, 2013. Water is a pressing issue for this community. Refugee camp members and the nomad community can travel upwards of 50 miles for water. Various mining industries as well as improper holding containers that leach toxins, also impact quality, access and availability for all. The Ministry of Water and Environments of SADR with the support of ArtsAction Group and PackH2o, are now conducting a needs assessment for how the packs might be used by the camp and nomad communities. Two of the packs were silkscreened by Sahara Libre Wear and featured in the ARTifariti fashion show.
For this project we designed a series of arts activities as a means of introducing PackH2o to the refugee community in Camp Boujdour during the ARTifariti Arts Festival that took place November 2 through November 8, 2013. Water is a pressing issue for this community. Refugee camp members and the nomad community can travel upwards of 50 miles for water. Various mining industries as well as improper holding containers that leach toxins, also impact quality, access and availability for all. The Ministry of Water and Environments of SADR with the support of ArtsAction Group and PackH2o, are now conducting a needs assessment for how the packs might be used by the camp and nomad communities. Two of the packs were silkscreened by Sahara Libre Wear and featured in the ARTifariti fashion show.
2013 Scenes from the camp and projects.
Play: We also held two arts workshops for children at the local primary school. The first workshop, linked to the PackH2o initiative, was for the students' to share their stories about water through drawings and a large scale collaborative mural. We shared a water story mural created by a group of students from the Allen-Stevenson School in New York City with the Sahrawi students. As one Sahrawi student put it, water is the gift of life. For the second workshop balloons were introduced as a medium for creating sculptural headdresses. One of our aims was to introduce the students to art making with non-traditional materials, incorporating skill-building activities through directed play. After much laughter, experimentation and popping of too many balloons the group came up with beautiful, fanciful head dresses. Children were spotted wearing their headdresses throughout the camp center later that evening.
