Sites of Refuge: Public Art Installation
Liverpool will be hosting two public art installations this Christmas by Filipino Artist Jason Dy. These will be located in Clayton Square, alongside the Crib, and the Baltic Triangle, Jamaica Street and Greenland Street.
Site One: Tree of Refuge - 4th-23rd Dec
The Tree is a Cedrus Libani which can be found growing on the slopes of Mount Lebanon in Syria. This geographical reference of the tree's source specifies the current crisis in Syria that forces its people to seek refuge in other countries. The public are invited to write their hopes and wishes for the survivors of political, religious and cultural persecutions (not exclusive to the Syrian refugees) on shipping tags and to tie them to the twigs of the tree. The work is a gesture of solidarity with the refugees through offered hopes and wishes.
After the duration of its display in Clayton Square the tree, along with the tied hopes and wishes, will be planted in a more permanent place and the piles of rubble will be places around the tree to demarcate it as a sanctuary.
Site Two: Transitional Shelter - 11th-14th Dec
The work Transitional Shelter references the images taken by British photographer Simon Roberts of the makeshift shelters built by the survivors of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) almost a year after the storm hit Tacloban, Leyte and other parts of the Philippines on 8th November 2013. Rebuilt shanties become temporary sanctuaries for families. This structure, comprising mostly of discarded wooden shed materials collected by Shed King Company is reconstituted as sculpture. The public are encouraged to enter into the space and write verses on the walls. An accompanying auditory piece of rain captured during the typhoon is looped serving as an ambient sound that is both disruptive and meditative.
'The globe shrinks for those who own it; for the displaced or the dispossessed, the migrant and the refugee, no distance is more awesome than the few feet across borders or frontiers.' - Homi K. Bhabha, 1992
For more information on the project please click on the link below