Syria in Painting, Photography, Film and Word brings together a broad-based selection of new artworks by Syrian artists based in Edinburgh and further afield, including organisations involved with Syria. Each of the artists presents a highly personal reflection of their homeland and the Syrian people through works in a variety of media.

Since November 2015, the City of Edinburgh has welcomed some 150 Syrian and Syrian Kurdish men, women and children, who arrived as refugees and have been relocated here under the Syrian Resettlement Programme. These families now form part of our community and culture. Summerhall welcomes this opportunity to support and produce this important exhibition of Syrian art.

By sharing their stories and memories these artists show that art can be created from catastrophe, that visions can survive, and that artistic truth has a vital role in the current world.

As well as occupying our Basement Galleries, the exhibition continues in the Library Gallery located in our ground floor cafe space. Please note the slightly different opening times of the Library Gallery, which will be open from 09:00 – 17:00.

Musician Ayman Jarjour will also be performing at the exhibition preview event on the 18/05/2017.

On the 27th of May, London-based journalist Mark MacKinnon will give a talk exploring the lives of the teenage instigators of the Syrian conflict, with whom he became fascinated by during his time spent as a former Middle Eastern news correspondent. He dedicated much of 2016 to finding out what happened next in the lives of these youths and will speak about his findings in the upcoming symposium, detailing his meeting with Naief Abazid and the other ‘graffiti kids’ of Syria and what he learned about their experiences of war, and now as refugees in Europe.

Mark MacKinnon is the senior correspondent for Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail and will speak at Summerhall on the 27/05/17 at 4.30pm.

Admission free, booking advised via eventbrite.

Curated by Nina Lehrfreund

Researched by Nina Lehrfreund and Brian Devlin, Founder of the Children’s War Museum.