Today (21 November) is the last chance to stop by the TimesSquare_Portal project, a golden shipping container that connects visitors in New York's busiest public space with people around the world, using advanced video chat software. During its seven-week-long run, the portable communications hub has linked up to cities in the US as well as Iraq, Afghanistan, Rwanda and Myanmar. Portals was created to foster one-on-one conversations across distances and different cultures, says the project's founder and creative director Amar Bakshi. During a visit in October, The Art Newspaper spoke with a group of children from the Harsham Refugee Camp in Erbil, Iraq about some of their favourite activities—playing football—and foods—shawarma and barbeque. The project is always travelling, and there are plans to launch a Portal in a repurposed school bus in February, so keep an eye on the organiser's website for future stops.
I just spoke to refugees from Mosul in Irbil, Iraq. Rami and Sami are two brothers who have been living in a refugee camp in Irbil for three years. Their journey from Mosul took them first through Syria, then Turkey, and after a delay of five days at the Kurdish border, they were permitted to enter again into the area of Iraq now controlled by the Kurds. Irbil is in Kurdish territory. The delay at the border was because relations between the Arabs and the Kurds is not that good.
LOS ANGELES (CN) – Inside the gleaming dark gold shipping container in LA's Grand Park, the three art students giggled uneasily. They sat in a room carpeted from floor to ceiling in charcoal gray, facing a screen that showed two Iraqi men, Muhammad and Rami, sitting on lime-green plastic chairs in a similarly enclosed space.
WASHINGTON, DC - Despite the horrific visuals coming out of Syria's civil war on a daily basis, it's easy to feel as if the conflict, and the associated refugee crisis, is a world away. But new technology is helping to connect Americans to Syrian refugees, in a way that puts people face-to-face, despite the distance.
A Myrna y Osama no hay nada que les guste más que ir al colegio. Durante meses, las atrocidades de Estado Islámico y las bombas impidieron que cogiesen los libros pero ahora, poco a poco, sus vidas vuelven a la normalidad. Lo hace en medio de la nada. En uno de los 23 campo de refugiados que las organizaciones internacionales han habilitado para los desplazados de la guerra en Mosul. Están a solo 60 kilómetros de distancia, pero allí, la vida vuelve a tomar forma, lejos de las atrocidades de los bárbaros.
Last week, members of the US House of Representatives met with displaced students from Erbil, Iraq, to highlight the magnitude of humanitarian crises in the world. The event was co-hosted by Global Citizen, Global Campaign for Education-US; Jesuit Refugee Service/USA; U.S. Fund for UNICEF; and A World at School.