Queer Refugees, The Art Institution and The University

LIMBO exhibition and workshop space. Photo: Maarten Nauw / Framer Framed

Queer Refugees, The Art Institution and The University

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At the beginning of 2022 Framer Framed embarked on a journey with participants from queer and refugee/migrant communities. LIMBO, an initiative by Fabian Holle (PhD Researcher) from Refugee Academy at Vrije Universiteit (VU) and Noa Bawits (Framer Framed), began as a series of workshops exploring creativity from different perspectives. From poetry lessons, storytelling to clay workshops and finally an exhibition presentation, the group of queer individuals created a safe space and meaningful friendships.

LIMBO was part of a research project that encompasses the topic of community engaged scholarship among the refugee/migrant communities in the Netherlands. The participants of the workshops contributed to this study, by voicing their opinions about their (migrant) experience with the Dutch institutions, their life in the Netherlands, and the concepts of refugeeness and queerness in their contexts.

Noa Bawits, education officer at Framer Framed, wrote her Master’s thesis Queer Refugees, The Art Institution and The University, in reflection of the project at Framer Framed. The research shows that working together with the queer refugee community has the potential to open up a semi-public space, such as academic and art institutions, as a ‘‘safe space for unsafe discussions’’ (Schavemaker, 2019, p 1). In this research I continued with the work of Holle et al. (2021) and argue that queer refugees have this ability partly due to their liminal status as liminality is a space of in-betweenness where there is room for creativity and reflexivity (Turner, 1979).

Although there were challenges encountered during the collaboration, such as the ever-changing composition of participants and mental health challenges that were caused by the sharing of traumatic stories, we also encountered opportunities during the research. The most prominent opportunity was that the collaboration provided a network for all parties involved. This sharing of knowledges between all parties has kept evolving, even after the end of the research period, as it was always intended to continue LIMBO after the research period was concluded. Framer Framed has continued to open up the space for the queer refugee community to come together. Furthermore, there have been multiple connections made between the queer refugee community, Framer Framed and the university.