Stories of refugees come to life in new exhibit visiting Vancouver

From a mug to a painting, ordinary objects tell a story about refugees who have been forced to flee their home and country.

The award-winning exhibition, Museum Without A Home, is full of items donated from refugees around the world and is coming to Vancouver this Thursday.

Each object in the exhibit represents something that helped to make the newly-arrived refugees richer, easier or safer — including a soccer ball given to Syrian children when they arrived in the United States.

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“These are incredible objects, that to them, really symbolized a welcoming into a new home or into a new family. There’s a number of objects that sort of relate to the campaign that are objects from women who have fled from crisis and it’s sort of giving an object back to women who are currently living in crisis as a show of solidarity and unity,” Oxfam outreach officer and exhibit organizer, Amanda Gomm, said.

The exhibition is put together by Oxfam International, who partnered with Amnesty International in Greece showcasing the diversity of individuals arriving in the country within different cultures coming together as one community.

As the tour travelled across the country, Oxfam partnered with different local community organizations to add additional objects and its story.

“It’s my job to carry these objects as we go, so it’s been quite a privilege to be able to sit down with these objects almost every day for the last several months and get to know them a little bit better,” Gomm said.

After stopping in Athens, Glasgow, New York and across Canada, Vancouver will be the last stop of the tour and is taking place on Thursday, Nov. 29, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the Museum of Vancouver. To RSVP, go to Oxfam’s website.