An artist who fled the war in Iraq more than a decade ago to live in Perth will have her work displayed in the Fair City as part of the Refugee Festival Scotland next week.
Miami Mohsin, 58, left Baghdad in 2004 with her two children after her home was destroyed in the conflict.
She is now using sculpture to highlight the plight of those forced to flee their homelands because of war.
She said: “I’ve lost a lot of things. I lost my house, I lost my furniture, I lost my history.
“These are memories. I’ve seen the bombs, I’ve seen people die. And then one day everything is gone.”
Entitled The Greatness of Silence, her four sculptures highlight the tragedy and hardship of the refugees’ journeys.
The pieces are individually called Running, Delivering, Drowning and Losing.
Miami said: “Each sculpture tells a different story, displaying the hard journey of people fleeing their country and looking for peace and safety.
“The figures are missing the middle section which symbolises lost identity and on the journey away from the world they know when they become refugees.”
She said she was one of the luckier refugees, as she was able to buy a plane ticket, but her artwork is for those forced to struggle through a more perilous journey to flee war.
The papier mache sculptures are based on real stories she has heard from other refugees, including a mother forced to give birth in a street and parents who lost their children at sea.
Miami said: “The people who come here, even if they used to live in a small house, it was still their home and we have to understand the feelings of these people who have suffered.
“But the war, it keeps going and it’s not stopping.
“The art is a message. It’s a message to the world – stop war.”
Miami’s exhibition for the Refugee Festival Scotland will be held at Perth Business Centre from June 20-29, between 10am and 5pm each day.
Soizig Carey, Arts and Cultural Development Officer at Scottish Refugee Council and producer of Refugee Festival Scotland, said: “The festival gives audiences the chance to say welcome to people who have recently arrived in Scotland and to be part of a positive movement of friendship and solidarity with people seeking safety here.”
