Housatonic — Assisted by the nonprofit organization Love Without Borders, the Center for Peace Through Culture, 137 Front Street, is currently displaying art by refugees from camps throughout Greece in an exhibit titled “Love Without Borders.”
In March 2016, refugees seeking asylum in Greece from various countries—including Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Congo, and Cameroon—were displaced by the closure of Greece’s border with Turkey.
Love Without Borders organization founder Kayra Martinez was working as a flight attendant for United Airlines in 2015, one year before the border closure. “I was based in Frankfurt, Germany, and even in 2015 I saw the massive influx of refugees coming in from the Middle East,” Martinez told The Berkshire Edge. “I went to work with volunteer groups. Through the volunteer groups, I was able to connect with other organizations that were supporting the refugees with food and clothing. Once I got to the Nea Kavala refugee camp [in northern Greece], I realized that there were many greater needs.”
Martinez recounted that many of the refugees in the camps were living in tents. Over the years, she has helped refugees secure housing.
Martinez has also started art programs for refugees in the camps. “I don’t even have an art background, but one day I took some paper and crayons to a tent with refugees,” Martinez said. “There were about 20 children in the tent, and I placed the paper and crayons down. They started to draw with a lot of passion. There was silence in the tent, and I realized that these children were all traumatized by what they were drawing. They were drawing motifs of the journey from Turkey to Greece. The boats in the pictures they created were upside down. There were stick figures representing people in the water. I realized that they were all really traumatized by their journeys.”
Martinez proceeded to rent a small apartment nearby where she brought children over from the camp and held art workshops, providing the refugees with art supplies to create their art. Eventually, Martinez invited the children’s parents and other adults to create art as part of the program.
She then started to sell the art on behalf of each artist, giving the artist all of the proceeds from the sale. “What we are trying to do is bring awareness around the world about the refugee crisis,” Martinez said. “We want people to understand that these refugees all have beautiful talents and that they are all valued. They also deserve a chance to succeed as everyone else does.”
Martinez said that she is trying to change the narrative about how some people view refugees. “When some people hear the word ‘refugee,’ they have a very negative connotation,” Martinez said. “They think of these people as uneducated and many different things. Refugees are people who have all fled their homes and their careers that they have worked their whole lives to build. I know that many of these people have had to leave all of their lives behind because they were fleeing wars. The perception of refugees needs to be changed.”
Each piece of art is accompanied by a biography of the artist, including details about why they had to flee their home country. “Their biographies explain what each refugee had to leave behind,” Martinez said. “It helps people to understand these artists and helps to change the perceptions of refugees.”
Martinez said that Love Without Borders is a very small organization. “But it’s really important for everybody to do something to help others in their corner of the world, whether it’s in Massachusetts or in Greece,” Martinez said. “It’s important to support other people in need so we can make a better world together.”
The exhibit will be on display at the Center for Peace Through Culture until Friday, February 14.
For more information about Love Without Borders, visit their website.
For more information about the Center for Peace Through Culture, visit their website.
