HOPE PAINTERS: Switzerland Since 2020
REFUGEES HOME
Location: AOZ, Switzerland
When: Since 2020
Background: “HOPE PAINTERS” is an ongoing project to create hopeful images at the home of people, who are living under desperate situations, with struggles of health/social issues, unemployment, domestic violence or traumatised experiences. The idea was inspired by many reports on the theme of the impact of art in community, Marschall* said a mural art can channel energies (of people) into the right direction, it contains the power of reducing violence and crimes, by giving them a constructive environment. (*COMMUNITY MURAL ART IN SOUTH AFRICA, by Sabine Marschall, 2002)
Goal: To beautify a home so the inhabitants can reclaim the ownership of the place, to transform the physical space to a home for them to feel they belong to.
Already a year ago we worked in the transit center in Zurich. At that time we painted three rooms for three different refugees before it was no longer possible to continue working because of the Corona situation. Seeing these rooms again was like coming home. A place that we were already allowed to shape through our work. During the week we met Hisa and when he learned that we had painted the picture in his room, he told us with enthusiasm:
“I lived in room 2 and when I saw the picture on the wall in room 3, I asked if I could change rooms. At first, they said no, I was already registered in room 2. I insisted that I had to live in that room. Otherwise, I’d just go in through the window. They said I should go in legally and gave me the room. That picture helped me live every day and move on. It saved me.”
Seeing the pictures encourage, touch, and strengthen more people was such a gift to us. It strengthened our hearts to give space to this project and invest time to paint pictures for people in their rooms, giving them hope every day.