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Artist in Exile
Carolyn Bancroft
Fifteen year old Samr, a young refugee from Iraq, started painting only two years ago—when he arrived in Egypt. Before his family left Iraq in 2005, he was just another teenager, the eldest of four children. When the family settled temporarily in Alexandria, he attended a religious school. Now that they live in Cairo, the cost of private school is prohibitive and Samr doesn’t want to attend another religious school. Samr wants to paint. In their apartment on the outskirts of Cairo, he copies Picasso and other greats, paints his impressions of Cairo, the faces of his brothers and his sister who used to play the piano in their home in Iraq, and sometimes he paints his memories of Baghdad. When he leaves home, he brings an envelope with photographs of his work.
One recent Friday, Samr and his father had the envelope of photographs along with a plastic bag of canvases. He was meeting with William Wells, Director of the Townhouse Gallery in downtown Cairo, a world-renowned gallery with an equally strong community outreach program. As Wells explains, the gallery’s role in the international art scene works in parallel to its community focus to create a space for supporting culture, self-worth, and expression.
Wells took his time looking over each of Samr's pieces and listening to him talk about his inspirations, his life, and his hope for the future. And afterwards Wells offered Samr a scholarship from the Friends of Townhouse, which will allow Samr to purchase art supplies and come to the gallery three days a week to apprentice with resident artists and participate in workshops. "The idea of these scholarships is to find an individual who could benefit from our support and offer materials, supplies, or financial support depending on the needs of the individual." Wells explained.
Samr will work with a painter in his studio, assist street children in weekly workshops, and participate in a Saturday community art initiative, SAWA, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), which is a partnership with the Egyptian Multicultural Council (Tadamon) funded by the Dutch Council for Refugees.
SAWA’s mission is "to provide an open un-politicized space for anyone to create art together with other individuals, regardless of background, origin, religion, age, gender, or previous experience." The SAWA workshops began in 2006 at a time when mistrust was high among refugees, Egyptians, and international NGOs following the deadly break-up of a Sudanese sit-in protest outside of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Cairo. As Mina Noshy, General Manager of the gallery and coordinator of the SAWA workshops, explained, "The first day of SAWA was the most important day of my life, so far." And the workshops have successfully hosted over 100 participants from different communities in Cairo who spend the day socializing and creating art together. For Noshy, "The most important element of these community workshops is trust and working together."
Samr will sit for exams in Alexandria in May to get a school certificate even though he has not been attending school, but his dream is to find a scholarship for art school abroad. He has already had one stroke of luck related to his talent. He was offered a chance to exhibit forty of his paintings at the Cairo Saudi Arabia Students Club in the spring. Earnings from this show may help support his family while they wait. As his father said, " This opportunity for my son at Townhouse is very good. At least, he is learning new skills and is working with other people. But staying in Cairo is terrible and hard. I worry about how I will support my family in the future."
