Today, more than 120 million people worldwide are forcibly displaced due to conflict, violence, persecution, and climate-related crises.
Nearly half are children.
Yet displacement is not only about crossing borders or loss. It is about survival, rebuilding identity, preserving culture, navigating uncertainty, and finding connection in unfamiliar spaces.
Courage Together is a digital exhibition hosted by Refugees International, featuring artworks from Artolution, open online submissions, illustrations gathered through The Greats platform, and works by artists included in past and current exhibitions by Arts for Global Development, Inc.
Created by refugee children, artists, families, and communities across Bangladesh, Uganda, Colombia, Ukraine, Greece, Ireland, Mexico, Israel, and the United States, the exhibition weaves together personal stories, collective experiences, and acts of creative resilience. Some works emerge from lived experiences of migration; others respond through solidarity, advocacy, or collective imagination.
From painting to drawing, illustration, photography, mixed media, and collaborative practices, the works are created with both traditional and repurposed materials, including canvas, handmade paper, and recycled food distribution bags from refugee camp settings. Many artworks travel across borders much like the people who create them, gathering new layers and stories along the way.
Across continents, these works become spaces of dialogue, memory, and human connection.
As you move through the exhibition, we invite you not only to witness these stories, but to reflect on your own relationship to belonging, empathy, and shared humanity.
THE JOURNEY: BORDERS AND CROSSINGS
In The Colour of Resilience Unseen: From the Stars to Home (Diptych, Parts 1 & 2) , children from Colombia, Ukraine, Venezuela, and the United States create a shared visual journey from Santa Marta to Irpin to New York, linking refugee experiences with homeless children and families through color, memory, and storytelling. Rivers, roads, boats, buses, and helicopters appear throughout the artworks as recurring symbols of escape, separation, survival, and hope.
In refugee camps, borderlands, cities, and temporary shelters, these works capture the enduring human experience of carrying memory and belonging even when home has been disrupted.
For many displaced families, movement is never just travel. It is a life-altering decision shaped by danger, resilience, and the search for safety.
Millions of displaced people remain in temporary or uncertain conditions for years, and families are often separated during migration and displacement.
Who gets to move freely, and who must risk everything to cross a border?
CHILDHOOD, CARE, AND FUTURE
Children’s perspectives are at the heart of the exhibition, shaping how care, hope, and resilience are seen and felt across generations.
In works such as Boy Dreaming by Hannah Moren, The Mother and Father Remember the Future (14″ × 24″), and The Hope of Resilience (36″ × 42″), hope appears as something shared; passed between parents and children, and carried forward through protection, imagination, and possibility. These works hold both fragility and strength, as well as the immediacy of childhood and the process of becoming.
In The Mother and Father Remember the Future, this intergenerational lens becomes especially present. Dildar, a new mother, imagines a brighter future for her first child, while Boshir Ullah, a grandfather in the Balukhali Rohingya Refugee Camp in Bangladesh, reflects on the lives of his children and grandchildren. Together, their perspectives hold aspiration and memory within the same space.
Many refugee children experience interrupted education, instability, and challenges to health and development.
What does every child deserve, regardless of where they are born?
COLLECTIVE CREATION AND SHARED HUMANITY
Artworks like Global Community Personalities (36″ × 42″), The Boat of Home (52″ × 42″), The Vehicle of Memory (54″ × 42″), The Messages of Our Patchworked Hope (12 ft × 2 ft), and Global Dialogue Exchange bring together Rohingya, South Sudanese, Syrian, Afghan, Congolese, Somali, and Palestinian participants in a growing conversation across cultures and borders.
The Boat of Home began in the Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement in Uganda, where South Sudanese children painted cattle and vehicles; symbols of livelihood and connection across communities and borders.
The same surface then traveled to Bangladesh, to the Rohingya Refugee Camp on Bhasan Char Island, where it was reimagined again.A pink boat recalls journeys across water, alongside henna-inspired patterns painted by girls from the local community.
Across continents, the work links two experiences of displacement through shared symbols of travel, access, and the ongoing search for freedom of movement and home.
The Vehicle of Memory also captures the stories between Rohingya and South Sudanese children and artists. In Bidi Bidi, children painted memories of home (villages in Yei, Wau, and Malakal) onto a discarded food distribution bag. That same surface then traveled to Bangladesh, where Rohingya children responded with folkloric patterns, images of home, and remembered helicopters of flight and displacement.
The artwork became a shared surface of exchange, where memory, migration, and imagination meet, and where “home” is continually reimagined through connection and hope.
A similar process was used in The Messages of Our Patchworked Hope, where children from diverse refugee communities, alongside artists such as Azamuke Kizito, added intricate drawings reflecting daily life.
With more than 50 participants, the work transformed into a living tapestry of marks and meanings, unfolding as a shared expression of identity, memory, and hope.
Displacement affects not only physical safety, but also language, cultural continuity, and recognition. Yet communities continue to preserve traditions and create new forms of connection across generations.
What traditions or memories make you feel connected to home?
Rob Art is a multidisciplinary artist based in Bidi-Bidi Refugee Settlement in Uganda. Through mural painting, drawing, digital art, and design, he explores themes of humanity, unity, and hope within displaced communities.
In Two Faces, One Humanity, (35cm x 35cm, acrylic on canvas) he reflects on the pain and hope carried through displacement, showing that while people may lose their homes, they do not lose their dreams.
In The Courage to Smile, (35cm x 35cm, acrylic on canvas), smiling becomes a symbol of strength and joy despite hardship.
Eddie is a Congolese refugee also living in Bidi-Bidi Refugee Settlement in Uganda. After fleeing his home and family, he faced difficult living conditions in the camp and turned to videography and photography as a way to support himself and express resilience through art.
His photograph, Resilience, captures a powerful truth: even in challenging circumstances, people continue to find moments of genuine joy and connection.
Eddie dreams of becoming a community leader and creating a lab that supports young creatives and disadvantaged people in achieving their goals. His message is a reminder that small acts of support can help others feel encouraged and valued.
THE LAND, WATER, AND LOSS
In The Flight of Memory (14″ × 12″) and The Rohingya Blessing for the Future of the Seas (4 ft × 4 ft), landscape, especially water, becomes a central language of memory and experience.
Rivers and oceans act as both witness and passage, holding stories of crossing, survival, and renewal. Water carries layered meaning: it is at once danger and lifeline, separation and connection, loss and continuity.
These works reveal that displacement is not a distant issue belonging to “somewhere else.” It is one of the defining human realities of our time. Across continents, communities are bound by shared experiences of searching for safety, opportunity, and home again.
Climate-related disasters are now among the fastest-growing drivers of forced displacement globally.
Is your home safe?
This sense of movement through fragile landscapes extends into works that confront loss more directly. Political imprisonment, forced displacement, border crossings, and family separation appear not as distant events, but as lived realities shaped by human vulnerability and endurance.
In the work of artist Gongsan Kim, burned canvases become acts of testimony. Orphans and Tuman River (36″ × 30″), Orphans in the Winter Borderlands (38″ × 30″), and Camp’s Night (30″ × 30″) use scorched surfaces to hold memory where language falls short, bearing witness to fear, pain, and invisibility.
Along the Tuman River, on the border between North Korea and China, children without protection navigate one of the world’s most dangerous crossings.
For some, it carries the possibility of escape and hope; for many others, it becomes a place of loss. Across these works, burned textures and reduced imagery reflect the fragility of childhood, the vulnerability of displacement, and the human cost of political borders—traces of lives suspended between survival and uncertainty.
In Camp’s Night, Kim turns to the reality of North Korea’s political prison camps, where generations have endured imprisonment, persecution, and the erosion of basic human dignity.
Fire becomes both material and gesture, transforming the canvas into a witness to repression and silenced histories. Through ash, minimal color, and reduced form, her practice holds loss as both elegy and resistance, insisting on remembrance.
Migration is also traced through the Migrant Project by Dr. Guadalupe Victorica, a Mexican visual artist, professor, and social science researcher.
Her works such as Tijuana Border, My Daughter and the River, and My Husband and the Train reflect migration as a deeply human experience shaped by separation, survival, and hope.
In particular, rivers and waterways emerge as powerful symbols of crossing, carrying both the risks of movement and the realities of displacement driven by water-related conflict and instability.
Millions of displaced people remain without long-term protection, stable housing, education, or pathways to safety. Human rights crises persist not only through violence, but also through invisibility and indifference.
What responsibilities do we have toward people whose experiences differ from our own?
MEMORY AND ADAPTATION
As you move through the exhibition, you will encounter fragments of lives interrupted, but never erased.
You will see memories of homes left behind. The fear of seeking shelter in unfamiliar places. The crossing of rivers and seas. The instability of camps and temporary shelters. But you will also encounter tenderness, imagination, humor, tradition, and care: the quiet but powerful ways communities continue to hold onto one another.
The Past Memories of Relationships (14″ × 12″) reflects emotional complexity through layered figures and fragmented forms, while New Beginnings by Ūla Šveikauskaitė or Livelihoods of the Past and Future (15 ft × 6 ft) explores how refugee communities adapt through shared knowledge, innovation, and collective resilience.
In The Past Memories of Relationships, children and artists at the Balukhali Rohingya Refugee Camp in Bangladesh translate the emotional weight of displacement into layered figures and shifting forms. Intertwined characters reflect uncertainty, memory, and the complex relationships shaped by leaving home. Rather than a single moment, the work unfolds as a cycle of thought, where the past lingers in the present and the future remains uncertain.
Across many of these works, artists and children who may never meet respond to one another across borders.
The canvas becomes a place of dialogue and shared imagination.
In Livelihoods of the Past and Future, South Sudanese and Congolese refugee artists and youth at the Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement in northern Uganda came together to reflect on how communities survive and adapt in changing conditions.
Moving between traditional agricultural knowledge and new possibilities shaped by technology and global connection, the mural brings past and future into the same shared space. Created during a period of reduced humanitarian funding and shrinking food rations, the work reflects on resilience as both preservation and adaptation, rooted in learning, innovation, and collective action.
Displacement reshapes not only lives, but also the landscapes and environments people depend on.
Memory here is not fixed.
It shifts between what is remembered, what is lost, and what is still becoming.
Sam (born 2008) is a South Sudanese refugee living in Bidi-Bidi Refugee Settlement in Uganda. He was only 10 when he was displaced by conflict in 2018, and turned to drawing as a way to cope and express himself, gradually developing his artistic practice despite limited early support.
In his artworks, Community Development and Friendship (35 cm x 35 cm) he emphasizes art as a bridge for social harmony and connection across economic divides. He highlights friendship as a source of unity, empathy, and shared hope among children in the community.
Similarly, Sabastian discovered his passion for art while living in Bidi-Bidi Refugee Settlement as a young South Sudanese refugee in Uganda.
In Independence, he reflects on freedom and the importance of creating opportunities for all people to feel empowered. In Love, he emphasizes compassion and the importance of supporting those in need.
Through his work, Sabastian hopes to inspire young people to pursue fine art and use creativity as a way to address community challenges and build a more connected future.
IDENTITY, BELONGING, AND HOME
The search for shelter, belonging, and the need to be seen and heard appears throughout the exhibition as something carried, rebuilt, and shared.
This is reflected in The Roots: Across Our Lives (20″ × 350″), where refugees from Syria, Palestine, Ukraine, and Congo collaborated with Irish host communities in Donegal. Led by artist Majida Alaskary, the work layers folkloric patterns, symbols, and cultural references into a flowing tapestry of connection, reflecting how people carry their roots while building new relationships and communities across borders.
Folkloric patterns and cultural symbols intertwine across a long flowing canvas, suggesting that roots can travel and belonging can be rebuilt.
A similar reflection appears in Nomadic Woman by Inessa Ruzh, where a woman knits the road beneath her feet while carrying the weight of memory.
Drawing from her migration from Russia to Israel, artist Inessa Ruzh explores the fragile balance between memory and identity, and the emotional complexity of rebuilding a sense of home while holding onto culture and personal history.
“My deepest dream for the future is a world where peace is a shared reality, and where children can grow up in safety, joy, and light, free from the shadows of conflict.
I wish for a world where home is a choice, not a casualty.
My message to the world is that we must protect the spaces where we bloom, and cultivate the collective courage to ensure that the next generation never has to learn the meaning of losing their home.” — Inessa Ruzh
What does home mean when home is no longer there?
In Home. Home. Home. Home by Chinese artist/illustrator Quanlong Li for ArtistsForClimate.org, home expands beyond geography into a shared planetary space shaped by care, safety, and belonging, while reflecting on environmental fragility and the human impact on the world we collectively inhabit.
Together, these works suggest that home is not only a place, but also memory, relationships, and the human need for connection.
Barau (born 2003) is a South Sudanese artist living as a refugee in Uganda. He hopes to become an international artist, open his own gallery, and use public art to create opportunities and positive change.
In Connection, (50 x 75cm on canvas) he highlights the importance of human connection and support for refugees building a better future.
Hope in Darkness (27 x 27 cm, acrylic on canvas) portrays resilience through a figure carrying light forward despite hardship, symbolizing hope, peace, and access to education.
Barau’s message is simple:
being a refugee is not the end—people can rebuild and begin again.
In Offering Beauty, Dora Muhammad, a Trinidadian multidisciplinary artist, author, and advocate for women’s, children’s, and human rights based in the United States, draws on her upbringing in an interfaith immigrant family to explore spirituality and collective healing.
The photograph on canvas depicts an urli on a mandir altar, evoking beauty, balance, and the power of cultural and spiritual connection to unite people.
Shaped by stories and artworks from across the globe, the exhibition invites reflection on our role in fostering a more compassionate world grounded in empathy, dignity, and shared humanity.
Courage Together asks us to move beyond witnessing these experiences toward response.
Response begins in how we see one another—as part of a shared world, not distant stories.
SUPPORT
• Refugee-led organizations and community initiatives
• Arts education and trauma-informed creative programs
• Local resettlement and mutual aid efforts
LEARN
• Engage with refugee and migrant stories beyond headlines
• Explore the histories connected to global displacement
• Listen with openness and empathy
ADVOCATE
• Support humane migration and asylum policies
• Promote inclusion and equitable access to opportunity
• Challenge narratives that reduce people to statistics
SHARE
• Continue conversations beyond this exhibition
• Bring others into dialogue through storytelling and creativity
• Help build cultures of care, connection, and belonging
What will you choose to do today?
For any questions about the artworks or artists, please contact: courage.together [at] art4development.net.
About the art piece in the header: Fabric of Women’s Resilience. Created by South Sudanese refugee women, this bark cloth travels across Bangladesh, Jordan, Greece, and Uganda, gathering stories from Rohingya, Syrian, Afghan, and South Sudanese women. Each place adds a layer, maternal health in Bangladesh, challenging stereotypes in Jordan, personal narratives in Greece, and community voices in Uganda, turning the work into a shared space of storytelling and exchange. Developed with support from Artolution, UNHCR (Bangladesh and Uganda), and UNICEF (Jordan).
Mural and Collective Artwork Credit: Since 2016, Artolution has collaborated with UNHCR Bangladesh, UNHCR Uganda, UNIQLO USA, Fast Retailing, MEDAIR, Chime for Change, Gucci Equilibrium, UNICEF, and Education Above All to support refugee and displacement-affected communities through arts-based programming. Select collective works featured in this exhibition were created through Artolution programs by refugee artists, youth, women, and community participants across multiple countries.
Courage Together: An Evening of Arts and Culture Honoring Refugees and Displaced People will take place on Thursday, June 18, 2026, from 5:00–8:00 p.m. at 1800 M Street NW, Washington, DC 20036.
In honor of Refugee Week 2026, Refugees International and the Refugee Storytellers Collective will host an evening of art workshops and performances by poets, musicians, and storytellers, including Safia Elhillo, Maimouna “Mumu Fresh” Youssef, Emi Mahmoud, and others. Reserve your spot and get your ticket today.