Flight to Freedom

Enliven this kinetic sculpture by tweeting your words of encouragement to refugees with the hashtag #flighttofreedom. As you engage with the sculpture, we'll send you a personal story of a refugee's struggle to escape oppression. Our hope is that this project raises awareness of the global refugee crisis among people who may not be otherwise affected by it, and at the same time provides encouragement to those making the impossible decision to flee their home countries in search of better, albeit unknown, futures.

Background

The world is facing the largest Refugee crisis since World War II - UNICEF

According to the Refugee Council, statistics say there are around 60 million people who have been forcibly displaced from their homeland. If all these people were combined into a single nation, it would be the 24th largest country in the world.

In countries like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia, millions of families have been forced to flee their homes due to persecution, conflict and poverty. These refugees, many of whom are children (some with parents and some without), are received with open arms in some countries and a closed door in others. They are too often caught in the middle of political negotiations and remain in a sort of stateless and homeless limbo. Not only this, threats like abuse and exploitation await women and undocumented individuals, even as they find homes in new places.

We wanted to depict this entanglement refugees face as they leave behind homes and take flight to an unknown future.

And as they do ...

Hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing from Syria take boats to cross the Mediterranean.

A Syrian refugee from Aleppo holds his one month old daughter moments after arriving on a dinghy on the Greek island of Lesbos, September 3, 2015 - Reuters.

News of over-sized boats capsizing have flooded the media with stories of horror and shock. In a widely circulated tweet, MSF Sea organization assisting refugees crossing the Mediterranean said:

"2016, the Mediterranean is a mass grave."

- widely circulated Tweet by MSF Sea organization assisting refugees crossing the Mediterranean

Some made it to the shores of their new homes...
...many did not.

The photo that silenced the world: