The Warmth of Other Suns

is the title of an exhibit at the Phillips in Washington DC, depicting stories of global displacement through the works of 75 artists from all over the world, in all sorts of media (photos, video, movies, painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)

As befits issues like these, the exhibits occupied all three floors of the Phillips, and many of the exhibits were heart wrenching. The one that left the biggest impact on me is a short film by Erkan Özgen whose work attempts to show how difficult it is to represent trauma.  He films a 13-year old deaf and mute boy, who escaped an attack in Syria. Through animated gestures, the boy conveys the horror of the attack: he mimics  how people were blind-folded, asked to kneel and, when someone else with a gun shot them through the head, how they fell forward and blood splashed all around them. How does one live with such images imprinted in their mind?

It makes me twice as angry at all those self-righteous people who reject immigrants for a fate no-one would want called upon them...