Refugee week is 18 – 14 June. We had originally hoped our photographic exhibition at Bournemouth Library would coincide, but we had to make do with the whole of April instead. The Mayor, Councillor Lawrence Williams, and Mayoress of Bournemouth opened our the exhibition – they are pictured, below, next to the Tapestry created by Amnesty groups in the South.
The main focus of the exhibition was the historic plight of refugees and features 30 photographs taken by photographers from the Magnum agency over the past 70 years. The photographs document some of the issues surrounding refugees from the mass upheaval and displacement of the post-war years to the present-day crisis in Syria, Afghanistan and South Sudan. It also ties in with AIUK’s current “Refugees Welcome” campaign.
The Tapestry depicts the 30 articles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR). This was originally created to mark the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta in 1215 and to highlight the continuing importance of the protections afforded by the UNDHR. The Tapestry spent 6 months adjacent to the Magna Carta at Salisbury cathedral. Since then it has travelled to other venues around the south.
As this year also marks the 70th anniversary of the signing of UNDHR, we think this is a great opportunity to display the Tapestry and bring attention to the 30 articles.
Throughout the exhibition we had a video loop, compiled by Tom Wilson. This had several short videos highlighting some of the issues and reasons Amnesty International exists. Two of the most powerful, by Save the Children, are below. As refugee week approaches, do watch them and share – at 90 seconds and 2 minutes they won’t take long, but you won’t forget what it must be like for a refugee child…