Calling on Local Artists

Calling On Artists, of all ages, to submit an art work responding to the painting and poem below:

MY SOUL

My soul once provided
Only tranquility
And it would not make my body impatient.
Now my soul’s tenderness for my body
Has been forgotten.
My body is in tatters.
My soul follows
To notify you:
“I am talking about Freedom!
You throw me into the corners of your dark shadows.
You put me into the very depths of exile.
The delicacy of my soul and body is no more
In this endless shadow.
If this continues any longer
I will not see anymore light
And my soul will be forever black”.

Farhad Bandesh: Poet, Musician, Artist, Refugee on Manus Island
Permission to use Farhad’s art and poetry received from Writing Through Fences

Power And Process — A Community Exhibition

• Exhibition to be held August 2nd – 27th
• Armidale Art Gallery, Upstairs at 168 Bready Street

Deliver art works to the Gallery by Saturday 27 July, 10am–1pm

While we have chosen only one painting and one poem to stimulate ideas, they stand for the many silenced people we have been left languishing for years on Manus and Nauru Islands and in detention on shore.

We welcome a response in any media, except video and film, including short poems, sculptures, drawings, paintings. They should be ready to hang or display. The maximum size is 1X1 metre, with D-rings and wire.

You are welcome to submit more than one work, but we don’t guarantee to display everything submitted. Artists are responsible for insuring their own work.

Price your work, realising that the Gallery will take 30%. Should you sell a work and wish to make a donation to Farhad, we can arrange it.

FARHAD BANDESH, a Kurdish visual artist, poet and musician, has been detained onManus Island for six years. Currently he is in Lorengau.

 “Kurdish people have suffered greatly through genocide, displacement and persecution. They still struggle today for independence, for country and freedom. They are not permitted to speak their own language, are stateless and cannot practise culture, music, art or dance.

“For me there is my physical self. But there is also an inner self, an inner journey of creativity with fragments of beauty. The inner journey means I can survive the outer journey. Without it, I would not be here.”

The aim of Rural Australians for Refugees (ARAR) is to promote justice and human rights in the way Australia treats refugees and asylum seekers. Armidale Rural Australians for Refugees has been advocating for:

• The release of people detained indefinitely by Australia in on-shore and off-shore detention, and an end to all indefinite detention.
• The right of permanent protection for those found to be refugees
• Family reunion
• The reinstatement of the welfare safety net and means-tested legal assistance for people seeking asylum here

ARAR meets at Kent House at 5:15pm
The Third Wednesday of each month
Everyone is Welcome