MARS spent a considerable effort in the last years trying to find ways that we could offer refugee BA scholarships in our university. The idea was that we would offer one scholarship per school per year. Too many walls that we met ultimately defeated us, not only because of the reluctance and obfuscation that we encountered, but also because we realised that in order to achieve our aims we would have to accept, kowtow and ultimately reproduce a range of categories used by Britain’s draconian border regime. We would become the enforcers of unjust laws.
6pm Friday 24th May M2 Grand Parade University of Brighton
MARS welcomes Sri Lankan born novelist and film-maker Roma Tearne, http://romatearne.co.uk/, as she reads the story she wrote for the soon to be published third volume of Refugee Tales: ‘The Father’s Tale’. The Father’s Tale relates the experience of a Kurdish man jailed in Turkey and then held in immigration detention in the UK, whose detention affected both him and his children. The telling of his story opens a debate about detention, its effects and the politics and ethics of representation. Continue reading THE FATHER’S TALE→
40 years ago, Southall in West London was rocked by violent racism that led to the killing of Gurdip Singh Chaggar and Blair Peach. One was killed by racist attackers on the street, the other was an anti-fascist killed by the Met Police. Continue reading RACISM AND RESISTANCE IN SOUTHALL – 40 YEARS ON→
The Space for All Estate Agency Created with the support Brighton activists, particularly those involved in Migrant and Refugee Solidarity at the University of Brighton and its Community University Partnership Programme is being exhibited in the 2018 Photo Fringe as part of Dystopia.
The opening of the exhibition on Saturday the 29th September, 2-
pm will be accompanied by a short talk by the participants.
An extract of Kevin Reynolds’ film We Ask Not What Thou Art, will be shown.
If you want to view the street work on which the exhibition, you can find the Space for All Estate Agency located on the corner of Hartington Road and Brading Road, BN2 3PD. Continue reading representing displacement / dislocation→
REFUGEE FESTIVAL
by the Migrant And Refugee Solidarity group
at the University of Brighton 18:00, room G7, 10-11 Pavilion Parade, BN2 1RA
Attitudes towards refugees and migrants are worsening across Europe. Xenophobic parties are on the rise, states are sealing their borders and, after the peak of 2015-6, public interest has declined. This year’s MARS festival evolves around the public reading of short stories from the Refugee Tales series, combining with interviews and discussions. Continue reading Refugee Festival • May 2018 • Programme→
An off-shoot of the Make It Happen! Homes for Refugees art project has just popped up!
Artists, activists, young people and local people were involved in art workshops that considered how to ensure that the important legend “Refugees Welcome” become a reality, how we can ‘Make it Happen!’ The biggest obstacle in Brighton is the expense of our housing, high rents that are unregulated in the private sector. We created a series of artworks that expose the difference between homes and properties, feeling at home and the market value of houses. Continue reading Space For All estate agency→
What is Torture?
This is not a rhetorical question.
Asylum decisions depend on how torture is defined.
But definitions seem to be much more flexible than what you would imagine. As policies change, words change too. Continue reading Proving Torture – 29 June, 19:00→
For the last end of the Refugee Film Festival we have saved the premiere of a documentary film on a local art-community project: Homes for Refugees. What do refugees need to feel at home? What spaces can we create for refugees within local communities? What types of houses could we design? What buildings could be used? What structures could we build? What should they contain? Over the last months our home artists and activists are asking the local community to discuss those issues effecting both refugees looking for safe homes and existing inhabitants who may feel their communities are changing. Homes for Refugees is the film recording Brighton’s reply to the above questions.
This event is part of the MARS Refugee Film Festival. See here for a full programme. All our events are FREE. Screenings take place in room G7, at the ground floor of 10-11 Pavilion Parade. (not wheelchair accessible – BN2 1RA – opposite the Pavilion and next to the Marlborough pub)
Did you know that Gatwick hosts one of the biggest detention camps of the UK? BAD (Brighton Against Detention) are organising the festival’s second event around the catastrophic effects of UK asylum policy and what can be done about it. There will be three films: Working Illegally, Dear Jane, and Hidden Stories. Between the films there will be discussion with representatives of the ex-detainees’ All Women’s Africa Group. There will be information – and hopefully a debate – about can be done to address the immediate problems of detention.
This event is part of the MARS Refugee Film Festival. See here for a full programme. All our events are FREE. Screenings take place in room G7, at the ground floor of 10-11 Pavilion Parade. (not wheelchair accessible – BN2 1RA – opposite the Pavilion and next to the Marlborough pub)
Migrant and Refugee Solidarity @ University of Brighton
M A R S 