We have now finished our project with the Welcoming and artist Alena Rogozhkina. Working with 12 New Scots from Ukraine, Syria, Sudan and Hong Kong, the group spent 8 weeks in the Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh exploring different techniques and materials and working together on a collaborative artwork which they exhibited at the last session. It has been wonderful to develop a partnership with the Welcoming and learn from their work and work with Alena for the first time. Alena, as a Ukrainian artist, is able to bring personal insight of and understanding of the traumas of the current ongoing conflict to the sessions.
It was clear to see how the group connected from the first session to the last and how it provided them with some respite to challenges in their lives. This project was a great example of how art can be used as a tool to share experience and process difficult emotions. Art can be such a powerful and useful visual language, especially if not fluent in English.?
It was also a great opportunity to introduce the Portrait Gallery as a free gallery to visit to for those taking part.
“I was really honoured to observe this inspiring creative journey which tells a true story of underlying emotions behind everyday lives of New Scots [in Edinburgh].
Our final exhibition piece involved shaping and painting pillowcases. The idea to use pillowcases as a surface was an unpredictable experiment that eventually opened the emotional voices of (those) we worked with, despite their various cultural backgrounds. Facilitation was not always an easy journey, often revealing real pain and constantly triggering sensitive memories while participants were shaping or painting. However, it was incredible to follow a real-time transformation of the collective pain into feelings associated with hope or the ability to move forward.” Alena
Participants on the project spoke of a new kind of hope and sense of efficacy at the end of the project” Lizzie – Health and Wellbeing Co-ordinator, The Welcoming.
9 March 2023 by
Amy Miles