ASIA / PACIFIC
August 6, 2018
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 3
Two New Yorker artists bring colors, smiles to Rohingya camps
ARTOLUTION. Rohingya refugee children (bot-
tom photo) kick a soccer ball outside a makeshift
school (top photo) with life-size murals on the walls
at Kutupalong refugee camp near Cox’s Bazar, Ban-
gladesh. The murals were created by a public art
organization called Artolution that collaborated with
refugees to create art in conflict zones around the
world. (AP Photos/Manish Swarup, File)
By Rishabh R. Jain
The Associated Press
UTUPALONG, Bangladesh —
With his blond dreads tied in a
ponytail and baggy jeans caked
with paint smudges, Max Frieder first
arrived at the cramped Rohingya refugee
camps last December. Unlike many other
foreigners, he wasn’t an aid worker in one
of the biggest camps for Myanmar’s per-
secuted minority in southern Bangladesh.
His mission: bringing color and art to
one of the most dismal places in the world.
Amid the sea of makeshift bamboo-and-
tarp shelters dotting the rolling hills of
Kutupalong, some huts are now painted
over with colorful murals. Each mural is a
collection of stories from the lives of
Rohingya refugees and their hopes for the
future.
Frieder and his partner, Joel Bergner,
run a public art organization called
Artolution. They’ve made hundreds of
large-scale murals around the world,
particularly with communities living in
conflict zones, from Syrian refugee camps
in Jordan and Lebanon to the Gaza Strip
and Israel.
“You might have food, you might have
water, you might have shelter, but there
are many deep-rooted psychological
traumas that refugees around the world
are facing today,” Frieder said.
In Bangladesh, they spent several
weeks interacting with children and other
refugees interested in drawing and
painting. They created more than a dozen
murals spread across the expansive camps
— covering schools, toilets, and gathering
spaces with a myriad of colors.
While hundreds of children, teenagers,
and entire families came together to parti-
cipate in painting the murals, some refu-
gees said they found their calling in art.
Hasina, 20, who covers her face in a veil
in accordance to her Islamic faith and uses
only one name, said she never thought
women were allowed to draw and paint.
She is now part of Artolution’s group of
local Rohingya artists who continue to
make public art and work with children in
the camps.
She said the paintings were therapeutic
for children. “The Rohingya have suffered
greatly in Myanmar. They (government
K
soldiers) slaughtered mothers and shot
people dead. When children see this art,
they forget about all that and become
happy instead,” Hasina said.
Rohingya face official and social
discrimination in predominantly Buddhist
Myanmar, which denies most of them
citizenship and basic rights because they
are looked on as immigrants from
Bangladesh, even though many of them
settled in Myanmar generations ago. Dire
conditions led more than 200,000 to flee
the country between 2012 and 2015.
The latest crisis began last August after
the Myanmar military crackdown on
Rohingya Muslims in retaliation for an
insurgent attack. The military responded
with counterinsurgency sweeps and was
accused of widespread human-rights
violations, including rape, murder,
torture, and the burning of Rohingya
homes. Thousands are believed to have
died and about 700,000 fled to Bangladesh.
The U.N. and U.S. officials have called the
government’s military campaign ethnic
cleansing.
As refugees complete almost a year of
living in Bangladesh, with little hope of
quick repatriation to their homes in
Myanmar, few have found ways of earning
a living. Most still rely on handouts from
aid organizations working in the camps,
including food, blankets, and tarps.
A growing number of children, who
make up more than 60 percent of the
refugees, are not able to attend school.
They can be found selling packets of chips
and cheap cigarettes at small makeshift
shops or helping their family carry aid and
care for other children.
Mohammad Hasan, another Rohingya
who was trained by Frieder, said he feels
proud when people in his community call
him a painter. He believes learning to
draw and paint is a means for his people to
move on.
“If they can temporarily forget about
their memories from Myanmar, they can
use the happiness they get here and move
forward with their lives,” Hasan, 28, said.
“Also, they are becoming perfect at
drawing and painting.”
Though the schools are rudimentary and
immense efforts are needed to educate and
rehabilitate
Rohingya
children
in
Bangladesh, the murals are bringing in
more kids to spaces where they can learn,
draw, and play.
In May, Artolution joined hands with
UNICEF to create an exchange mural,
which was painted by children and other
Rohingya in Kutupalong. It was later
hand-carried to New York City, where it is
now on display inside the World Trade
Center transit hub known as the Oculus.
Frieder said almost half a million people
now see the art created by Rohingya in
New York every day. He believes the
murals are making people aware, some for
the first time, about the displacement of
more than 900,000 Rohingya Muslims.
“I think people around the world have no
idea who the Rohingya people are and
what they are going through,” he said.
“These pieces of art, these stories that they
create, are able to say, ‘We are here, we
exist.’”
Associated Press video journalists Rishi
Lekhi in New Delhi and Ted Shaffrey in
New York contributed to this report.
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