For Refugee Week 2024, we take a closer look at the story behind the current exhibition in The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery: Iranian artist Mohammad Barrangi’s One Night, One Dream, Life in the Lighthouse.
Refugee Week is the world’s largest arts and culture festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. This year’s programme of events, activities and exhibitions runs from 17 – 23 June, bringing together people from different backgrounds to foster a deeper understanding of displacement, and the challenges people face when seeking safety.
“Honestly it was difficult, it was waiting and waiting, I was in detention,” says Mohammad in a recent Guardian interview. “I arrived in the UK with no family, no friends, not talking English”. But with the support of Wakefield’s Art House, followed by studies at the Royal Drawing School, he developed his unique printmaking practice, and made a permanent home in Leeds.
He says that he hopes his exhibition, which runs until 20 July, will encourage people to think about the human stories behind the headlines about migration.
The installation revolves around its own dreamlike story, with fragments of Mohammad’s personal experiences mingled with imagery found during his residency in the University of Leeds’ Special Collections, and references to the pioneering civil engineer and lighthouse designer, Leeds-born John Smeaton, whose 300th anniversary is also celebrated this year…
“The exhibition tells the story of Lily, a girl with her head full of dreams and stories.
Born in Anzali, an Iranian port on the Caspian Sea, she travels to a seaside town in the south of England in a small wooden boat.
She is dressed in a talismanic shirt sewn by her mother to ward off adversity.
It is a stormy night and she finds shelter in a lighthouse that reminds her of the Manareh tower that overlooks the harbour in Anzali.
On reaching the top of the building, she feels as if she is in a new world. Falling asleep with fatigue and cold, she hears a traditional song that her mother used to sing to her.
In her dreams, a baby unicorn zebra calls her and she reads it mythological stories that she heard as a child.”
In collaboration with The Highrise Project and as part of the Galleries’ ongoing Welcoming Migrants initiative, the exhibition also features a collective digital artwork made by a group of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants inspired by Mohammad’s work. Over the course of six workshops, the group has explored the magic of storytelling through collage, print and stop motion animation.
Refugee Week will be celebrated with the publication of a recipe book created by the Leeds Asylum Seekers Support Network (LASSN) Tea and Talk Group in collaboration with Leeds University Library Galleries. In a workshop led by Galleries Student Ambassador and artist Saba Siddiqui, the group drew inspiration items selected from the University’s internationally-renowned Cookery Collection, before writing and illustrating recipes from their own cultures. School of Design student Charles Fowler assembled the material and designed the book.
The University Library Galleries’ engagement with displaced people celebrated another milestone with the recent announcement of an Academic Asylum Seekers and Refugee Access membership, granting free, year-long, reference access to the libraries.
‘Welcoming Migrants’ contributes to the University of Leeds’ wider ambition to become a University of Sanctuary. The project offers community outreach based on our collections, engaging with local refugees and migrants. It connects people, objects, and stories with the aim of developing skills and supporting wellbeing.
‘Mohammad Barrangi: One Night, One Dream, Life in the Lighthouse’ runs at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, Parkinson Building, University of Leeds, until 20 July 2024.
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