every day we pass strangers; and

we might take the chance to stop at the place where our eyes meet.

Beyond Refuge: Dialogues features five cinema poems by Australian artists who share a refuge/asylum seeker experience.

Beyond Refuge is CuriousWorks’ three-year creative development program for artists who seek to change the asylum seeker narrative by defining on their own terms what they would like to say and how they would like to say it. Small film teams led by Ali Al Azeez, Ali Mousawi, Elham BehinAein, Daisy Montalvo and Samia Halabi have developed the artists’ original ideas into five unique video and photo-media works that tell stories of parallel lives, family and time passing.

Created from ‘the epic films we have inside us’ and based on ordinary lives set against extraordinary circumstances, Beyond Refuge: Dialogues is a gentle manifesto for freedom and friendship, and an evocation of the consequences of forced migration.

Beyond Refuge has been supported by Australia Council of the Arts, Settlement Services International, the peak NSW body for refugee settlement and migrant resources centres, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, Liverpool City Council, Fairfield City Council, Parramatta City Council, Learning Ground Mt Druitt, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, 2019 Head On Photo Festival and Create NSW.

Part of 2019 HeadOn Photo Festival Program at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre

Image credit: Calendar (Still), Ali Al Azeez. Photo by Ali Al Azeez. From the set of El Baile, Daisy Montalvo. Photo by Diego Murillo. From the set of My name is Mohamed and Raghad., with Raghad and Mohammed, Ali Mousawi. Photo by Diego Murillo. New Home, New Hopes (Still), Elham BehinAein. Photo by Elham BehinAein. Trinity (Still), Samia Halabi. Photo by Ali Al Azeez. Image courtesy of CuriousWorks.