One in One Million: The Suitcase art exhibition to open at UEA
By: Communications
L-R: Anastasiia Petrenko (Ana), Sanctuary Scholar and The Suitcase participant; Ana arranging film canisters for her suitcase, representing the photos she had to leave behind; Saleh, Sanctuary Scholar and The Suitcase participant
(Photo credit: Samantha Rajasingham)
The Suitcase is an innovative and original community art exhibition at the University of East Anglia (UEA) which explores the concepts of loss and belonging through the eyes of sanctuary seekers from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, Türkiye and Egypt.
Opening on Friday 3 March and running until Friday 10 March, visitors are invited to connect with six stories of displacement through five suitcases located on plinths around the campus. Each suitcase will tell the story of a sanctuary seeker through the objects they had to leave behind, alongside those precious things that could be saved, like a small bag of soil from Afghanistan – one sanctuary seeker’s tangible connection to a lost homeland.
Each suitcase will also display a QR code which visitors can use to access further information, as well as a short film, produced by Red 7, which details the sanctuary seekers’ lived experiences, their journeys to Norwich, and the emotive reasons for the objects they chose to share.
The Suitcase is the brainchild of Anastasiia Petrenko (Ana), a Ukrainian student studying MA International Development at UEA. Ana is one of the 2022-23 cohort of Sanctuary Scholars, who receive a scholarship as part of UEA’s commitment to helping reduce the barriers to participation in higher education faced by those seeking sanctuary in the UK. The Suitcase was developed alongside other Sanctuary Scholars from a range of other countries, including Afghanistan, Syria and Türkiye.
In a quirk of fate, the exhibition opens on 3 March, exactly a year to the day that Ana left Ukraine in the face of advancing Russian tanks.
Speaking ahead of the launch, Ana said: “The Suitcase is a representation of what we have had to leave behind, all the sacrifices we have made while trying to survive. A breath-taking mixture of hope and despair. I want people to think what they would do if they needed to pack the whole of their life in a suitcase, what are they going to put inside, I want them to think at some point what are the most important things. Your family, your friends, or a scarf you bought for £300?”
On 3 March 2022, the UN announced that one million people had been forced to flee Ukraine in just seven days. Ana was one in this million. She had left her home on the 24 February as Russian forces approached. Just over a week later and after a harrowing journey across Ukraine during which she was forced to abandon her suitcase, Ana made it on to her final train ride in Ukraine. As the train moved towards a safer country, Ana looked back at a line of abandoned luggage on the station platform and contemplated how there is no space for belongings when a million people are moving. Ana made a silent promise to herself that she would not let this image pass, and that when she reached safety, she would work to raise awareness about the harsh reality of war.
Ana said: “We tried to pack our life in a suitcase. We tried to pack everything inside, but you just can’t. You’re leaving your whole life behind. When you’re on the road, every single day you’re thinking, was it the right decision, maybe I should have stayed, maybe I’m completely insane with what I’m doing. Maybe the next day will be even worse, and it turns out every single day while you’re on the road is worse because you’re tired, you’ve left everything behind and you’re questioning your sanity and questioning who you are.”
For Ana, working on this project alongside other Sanctuary Scholars represented both an opportunity to come to terms with the trauma of her past, and to highlight the intrinsically personal experiences that exist behind the headlines and statistics published by the media on a daily basis.
She said: “I would say personally, for me, sharing my story is the way to heal myself. Sharing my story is my way to explain that I’m a human being. This could happen to anyone. I had a good job. I enjoyed my life. Every Saturday I had pizza night with my friends and we would just watch Big Bang Theory, Friends or something else. I had a good life. I had a hairdresser, got my nails done, everything like that. I flew to Amsterdam just a few weeks before having to flee. Like just hanging around in Amsterdam, just to have fun, so I had an amazing life, and the thing is, this kind of experience could happen to anyone.”
Ana sees the benefits of being a part of a cohort with shared experiences, with the scholars meeting on at least a monthly basis, both to work on projects such as The Suitcase (just one part of UEA’s Refugee Week programme events), and also to support each other as international students.
“We’re all traumatised," said Ana, "but it’s good to know that you are not alone, we’re all getting through that. With other students, I’m sorry, but they will never be able to understand that, maybe feel compassionate about the pain, but to actually understand that? No. This is a whole other level of experience which no one should go through. So yes, I have found it really helpful.”
Ana hopes that this iteration of The Suitcase is just the start of a longer-term project.
Over the past few years, dozens of sanctuary seeking students have benefitted from one of several scholarship types at UEA, including the Sanctuary Scholarship, studying across a range of undergraduate and postgraduate subjects.
Madi Dutton, UEA’s Sanctuary Liaison Officer, is keen to highlight the external support that makes things like The Suitcase, and more widely UEA’s University of Sanctuary work, possible. She said:
“Since 2018, we have been able to support 22 students through the awarding of Sanctuary Scholarships specifically - thanks to the generosity of donors who recognise that a person’s past doesn’t need to dictate their future aspirations. Sanctuary Scholarships are entirely dependent on the backing of philanthropically minded individuals and businesses, and we always welcome the chance to talk to interested parties and forge new alliances and networks.”
Related Articles
Nurses worldwide rely on intuition to triage patients
Nurses around the world use intuition to work out how sick a patient is before triaging for treatment according to new research from the University of East Anglia.
Read more
UEA nursing apprentice’s sky-high dive for Alzheimer's and Dementia awareness
On Sunday 24 September, University of East Anglia (UEA) nursing apprentice Francessca Turrell will be taking part in a charity skydive for Alzheimers Society, a UK care and research charity for people with dementia and their carers.
Read more
New book to focus on Norwich’s medieval logos
Logo Rewind: Trademarks of Medieval Norwich is a new book from UEA Publishing Project, in collaboration with CreativeUEA and featuring the work of Darren Leader, which will focus on the stories of Norwichs medieval merchants marks found in different locat
Read more