Repair, Refuge, & Resilience:
Work from the 2022 Narratio Fellowship

Presented in partnership with ReEstablish Richmond

July 28 - August 19, 2023
Elisabeth Flynn-Chapman Gallery

Narratio activates, supports, and highlights the creative expression of displaced young people through fellowships, workshops, publishing, and collaborations with partners in the arts, education, and media. Our community is cultivated through our flagship Narratio Fellowship, which connects artists to cohorts of resettled refugee youth fellows to explore and represent the full range of their experiences through multimedia storytelling. 

The program was developed in response to some of the most pressing problems in representations and understandings of refugee and resettlement experience in the United States and around the world; namely, the pervasive flattening of refugee identities and experiences, the villainization of immigrants in an age of increasing nationalism and xenophobia; and a lack of long-term storytelling and leadership programming for displaced populations. 

By elevating the voices of youth Fellows and providing opportunities and resources for them to represent the full complexities of their own experiences and identities, the Narratio Fellowship seeks to shape and influence the global conversation around displacement and cultural production.

Through a year-long program, Fellows work with artists and program directors to develop and share stories across contexts, media, languages. The program begins with a month-long summer workshop series and culminates in two key gatherings: a trip to New York City where Fellows showcase their work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a comprehensive physical exhibit and performance in their local communities. In addition to providing youth fellows at educational transition points with academic mentorship and advising through partnerships with schools and universities, the Fellowship is designed to encourage and prepare alumni to shape the program’s growth and sustainability.

Over the past four years, the program has activated the creative power of 57 fellows from over 17 countries to reach over 2.5 million individuals via publications, exhibits and performances at the Metropolitan Museum, Christie's, United Nations, Harvard, and many others. Our growing community of partnering organizations includes the United Nations (IOM, UNHCR, and OSGEY), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Christie’s, Virginia Public Media, Syracuse University, Harvard University, Wesleyan University, the North Side Learning Center, ReEstablish Richmond, Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Lighthouse Relief, Echoing Green, and Tarjimly. 

2022 Fellowship / Repair, Refuge, & Resilience 

The 2022 Narratio Fellowship program included two cohorts across two cities: A visual arts cohort in Richmond, VA, led by Colombian artist Alfonso Pérez Acosta, and a photo-poetry cohort in Syracuse, NY, co-led by Pakistani-American poet Maleeha Bhadki and Chinese photographer Wendy Wang.

The year-long program across both sites resulted in two public showcases: a visual arts exhibit from Richmond Fellows and a photo-poetry performance/exhibit from the Syracuse Fellows. For “I Am Because We Are” Richmond Fellows created a series of works representing the shapes of their stories and intwinements of experiences, feelings, and understanding across stories. They combined these works in a mobile mural with 12 panels highlighting the collective representation of intersections across their life experiences.  

The Syracuse Cohort was facilitated in collaboration with CODE^SHIFT.  Fellows selected objects from the Metropolitan Museum's Ancient Near East Department and created poems and photographs around the memories and experiences they evoked. During the month-long summer intensive, the Syracuse Cohort created visuals to accompany their poetry. Throughout both cohorts, Fellows draw inspiration and provocation from objects and engage questions of cultural heritage, belonging, displacement, ownership, preservation, and provenance through poetry, visual art and dialogue. More at: narratio.org/2022fellowship

Website: narratio.org/fellowship
Instagram: @narratio_org

ReEstablish Richmond

ReEstablish Richmond and Narratio partnered last year to host the first Richmond cohort of the Narratio Fellowship, and we are partnering again this year for a second Richmond cohort. The exhibit will feature artwork from the 2022-23 Richmond cohort, the 2022-23 Syracuse cohort, as well as some artwork from the 2023-24 Richmond cohort. 

Beyond our partnership with Narratio, ReEstablish Richmond more broadly seeks to connect refugees and new immigrants to resources needed to establish roots, build community, and become self-sufficient in the Richmond area.

Website: reestablishrichmond.org
Instagram: @reestablishrichmond

Richmond Virginia Visual Art Cohort: Florence Tamari, Gladis Cazun Mejia, Jean Pierre, Maryam Hashimi, Lama Ahmed, Valeska Belloza Guevara, Nazira Mohammadi, Fabrice Niyitanga, Hassina Farhat, Sobia Abed, Frohinda Farhat, Sharokh Sahibzada

Syracuse, New York Photo-Poetry Cohort: Finan Amare, Yamikani Vitusi, Maryam Murqus, Reshma Bista, Khadra Habseme, Hayat Muhammed, Bashal Abdi, Mohammad Sharif Jafari, John Dalisto, Florence Tamari