Refugee Week 2024
The theme for Refugee Week 2024 is “Our Home”. From the places we gather to share meals to our collective home, planet earth: everyone is invited to celebrate what our Our Home means to them.
Home can be a place of refuge, a feeling or a state of mind. It can be found in smells, tastes and sounds. From the clothes we wear to the words we grew up with. It’s in food, music and arts. It’s in our cultures and in our landscapes.
Together, this Refugee Week let’s practice our solidarity and make Our Home a more welcoming, safe and sustainable place for all.
Read more at refugeeweek.org.uk
“To me, a home is where you feel loved, safe, and cherished.”- Malala Yousafzai
We are proud here at Oriel Davies to be able to continue the legacy of Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, Wales’ greatest art collectors and benefactors, by making the gallery a warm and welcoming space for all.
Our recent project 'River Songs' culminated in a wonderful weekend of singing, sharing meals and making connections with Oasis one world Choir, Cardiff, Credu Hafren and Llanidloes Community Choirs and the Newtown Syrian Supper Club.
We are building relationships with local refugee families through a range of activities focussed on the natural environment, the River Severn and the sharing of food and music.
Bringing Refugee Artists to Wales
On 4 August 1914 Germany invaded Belgium, precipitating the First World War. Over a million Belgians fled their homes.
The Davies family decided that Belgian artists should be brought to Wales, where they could work in safety, and inspire the country's art students. Major Burdon-Evans, their agent, and their friend Thomas Jones journeyed to Belgium where they assembled a group of ninety-one refugees, including the sculptor George Minne, and the painters Valerius de Saedeleer and Gustave van de Woestyne and their families.
All three artists were to spend the rest of the war as refugees, largely dependent on the Davies family for support. While their impact on the arts in Wales was limited, the work of all three was to be profoundly influenced by their Welsh exile.