Refugees

For this project 'Caritas Bulgaria' gave me the opportunity to meet and tell the stories of refugees and asylum seekers, who came to Bulgaria in search of a second chance for a peaceful and normal life.

My wonderful colleague Ellie Todorova and I spent a few weeks taking interviews and discussing the refugee crisis with the very people it affects.

Those conversations moved me deeply and changed me forever. What human interaction can create and what can destroy in the same time is a contrast that is very hard to swallow. Painting was one way to reflect and understand what I've learned from this experience.

My first meeting was with George and Sarine. The warmth in their voices and the nostalgia for their hometown of Qamishli made me realize how little we know for each other. And yet how obsessively we expect to be liked and understood. The social fetish of being understood after speaking with them looks like a broken plastic toy in the dust of a ruined Syrian town.
The Zavaro family used to live surrounded by friends and neighbours, until one day the war took away everything they knew. They could no longer sleep, knowing that some blocks away armed guards are patrolling the streets. Death was just around the corner.

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R. Came in Bulgaria from Lebanon. this mother of five made the impossible to learn Bulgarian as fast as she could, so her kids can feel safe in yet another land, refusing to become their true home.
Her life in Lebanon is a painful wound that will hardly ever heal. Yet she has learned to look into the future – the lack of equality and the sense of insecurity are the sensations she has grown up with. She does not want her children to grow with their wings cut and lives to show them they are free and capable of making their dreams come true.
The family still has no status in Bulgaria. After three years of hardship, the Bulgarian authorities issued yet another refusal.
“this refusal is very hard for me,” R. says with pain in her voice. But the pain in her eyes is even more noticeable. It weights much more than the tears she bravely manages to hold back.

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