OUR BRANCHES
by Dima Karout + Young People
This collective artwork reflects on the many possible metaphors for Branches and how it relates to our roots, identities, and our vital relation to the light.
We’ve created these art pieces through various art workshops I’ve delivered in collaboration with the Play for Progress team and young people since March 2019. We all reflected on the metaphor of branches and discussed what it means to us as individuals, then translated that into artworks using various art techniques. We were inspired by our personal journeys through displacement towards finding a place to call home and a new land where we can replant our roots, flourish and expand our branches. Every week, we’ve shared a warm space open to exchange, experimentation and discoveries. We’ve created a community where most of the time, we didn’t speak the same language, but tried to communicate and feel united using other creative ways.
I’ve started this project having in mind the importance of human connections in times of internal and external conflict. And I am grateful to play for progress founders, team, and all the young humans who inspire me and confirm to me once again that:
It is always possible to meet through art.
Dima Karout is an artist-curator and educator dedicated to creating spaces where art, culture and education meet and interact. Her work advocates for inclusion, cultural diversity and social engagement; explores the dynamic between artist, artwork and spectator; and investigates how the participatory aspects of art can positively influence research and learning and advance the societies we live in.
In the past 15 years, Dima directed mixed media art projects, designed art publications, developed educational university programmes, and curated exhibitions and cultural events in Damascus, Paris, Montreal and London. Today, she is based in London where she collaborated with influential institutions as The British Museum, Shakespeare’s Globe, Tate Exchange, The Arab British Centre, Greenwich Theatre, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Brent Museum and Archives, The Migration Museum and Play for Progress.
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