Migration Museum hits £5,000 target for refugee exhibition
Donations will enable 150 refugee lifejackets to be transported from Greece
The Migration Museum has raised more than £5,000 through crowdfunding towards its upcoming refugee crisis exhibition, which will open in June.
The funds will be put towards transporting 150 lifejackets, worn by refugees making sea crossings to the Greek island of Kos, to London. They will feature in the Call me by my name: stories from Calais and beyond exhibition at the Londonewcastle Project Space in Shoreditch, London.
The lifejackets, many of which are dangerous fakes, were collected by aid worker Sarah Savage, who assisted the refugees arriving on the beaches of Kos by boat. Along with the jackets, Savage recorded the names, nationalities and ages of those who wore them and some of these stories will be displayed at the museum.
To pay for the cost of transporting the lifejackets to London, the museum set up a crowdfunding campaign on 6 April with a £5,000 donation target. The museum reached its target within five days and at the time of press had raised a total of £5,200.
Extra donations made will go towards putting on further exhibition events, such as a poetry evening hosted by the poet and children's laureate Michael Rosen, film screenings, theatre performances and panel discussions.
Aditi Anand, co-curator of the project, said she was overwhelmed by the “generosity and encouragement” of the 97 people who have made donations so far.
“Hitting our initial funding target within the first few days is a fantastic achievement” said Anand. “It will enable us to display these 150 lifejackets and tell the 150 powerful human stories behind each of them.”
The funds will be put towards transporting 150 lifejackets, worn by refugees making sea crossings to the Greek island of Kos, to London. They will feature in the Call me by my name: stories from Calais and beyond exhibition at the Londonewcastle Project Space in Shoreditch, London.
The lifejackets, many of which are dangerous fakes, were collected by aid worker Sarah Savage, who assisted the refugees arriving on the beaches of Kos by boat. Along with the jackets, Savage recorded the names, nationalities and ages of those who wore them and some of these stories will be displayed at the museum.
To pay for the cost of transporting the lifejackets to London, the museum set up a crowdfunding campaign on 6 April with a £5,000 donation target. The museum reached its target within five days and at the time of press had raised a total of £5,200.
Extra donations made will go towards putting on further exhibition events, such as a poetry evening hosted by the poet and children's laureate Michael Rosen, film screenings, theatre performances and panel discussions.
Aditi Anand, co-curator of the project, said she was overwhelmed by the “generosity and encouragement” of the 97 people who have made donations so far.
“Hitting our initial funding target within the first few days is a fantastic achievement” said Anand. “It will enable us to display these 150 lifejackets and tell the 150 powerful human stories behind each of them.”