Refugee Stories
April – June 2024
In the lead up to Refugee Week (17 – 23 June 2024), Depot highlights new films depicting the diversity of experiences among refugees and people seeking safety
‘Refugee Week is the world’s largest arts & culture festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. Established in 1998 in the UK, this annual festival aligns with World Refugee Day, celebrated globally on June 20th.’ – refugeeweek.org.uk
Shamboogie
Celebrate this mid-summer at Depot as Shamboogie comes to Dalliance. DJ Shamblin Sexton (The Great Eastern, Brighton) plays a super summer set of jazz funk, rare groove and sun-soaked soul records to see you through the longest Saturday night of the year.
Feature Kitchen
Formed in 2017, the fantastic Feature Kitchen have a simple goal – to help cooks from various cultural backgrounds to share their food. This week, they’ll be bringing us a menu from Genet, an Ethiopian refugee living in Brighton who dreamed of cooking for the public as she had done before migrating.
This week’s menu:
Coming soon…
Exhibition
Odyssey of a Line: The Calligraphic Journey of an Immigrant Artist Ramin Imantalab
Depot’s Studio – Free Entry
12 – 14 June, 17:00 – 22:00
15 June, 10:00 – 17:00
16 June, 10:00 – 13:00
Ramin was born in 1988, in the northern city of Rasht, Iran. He began learning calligraphy, painting, and traditional Iranian music from his teenage years. At the age of 20, he established his own art school and started teaching calligraphy at his private academy and other schools in his city. Holding a solo exhibition and participating in over 50 group exhibitions, as well as teaching over 300 students in Iran.
In 2018, due to political reasons and his protesting against the Islamic government, he was forced to abandon all his artistic achievements and everything else and flee Iran.
During three years of difficult refugee life in Greece and three years of living in England, he continued his artistic journey with great difficulty and many limitations. By researching West and East calligraphy of Asia and incorporating more painting elements such as colour, form, and space in addition to “Line”, which was the main basis of his art, the style and context of his works changed.
The works in this exhibition are the result of a six-year journey from Rasht to Athens and from Calais to London. A winding journey. Full of fear, darkness, jungle, and waves. A completely extraordinary and indescribable journey, many moments of which were full of danger, depression, and pain. A journey that resembles more of an “Odyssey”.
”The Odyssey of a Line” tells the silent and illustrated story of a simple and black line that has undergone the inevitable changes of the world.