BeliefandConflictintheUK

Platforms for Exchange: Syrian Voices in London, Roundtable

Room: SW-1.07:Inigo Rooms, King's College London
Monday 27 April 2015 at 6:45pm-10pm
Address: Somerset House East Wing, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS
On arrival please report to Somerset House East Wing reception where you will be
issued with a visitors card giving access to the Inigo rooms.
Directions:
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/cultural/culturalinstitute/aboutus/venuehire/InigoRooms.aspx#a
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AGENDA
6:50- 7:00

Registration

7:00- 7:20

Project Introduction and Objectives

7:20-7:35

Rules of Engagement and Participants Introduction

7:35- 9:00

Issues Introduction by Professor Michael Kerr, Participant

Perspectives. Including:

Complexity of the conflict- sectarian, political...?

Role of foreign/International intervention. Russia and China
ISIS and Assad in media portrayal
Asylum/displacement

9:00-9:15

Moving Forward Positively

9:15-9:30

Visual Art Workshop Introduction and Closing

9:30-10:00

Networking & Video and Audio Recordings

Visual Art Workshop: This will take place on Wednesday 13th May from 6:45pm at
the Anatomy Museum at Kings College London, Strand. More details will follow.

Reverberations of Conflict: Syrian Voices in London

I am a London based artist working across video, interactive installation to
performance, my work is all about empowering individual voices and inciting
exchange to challenge prejudice and perception and to broker understanding
between communities. I am exploring the complex conflict in Syria and looking for

participants for a project that seeks to give a platform for London based voices of
those affected by the Syrian war to be heard by each other and to raise awareness of
the urgent issues with the wider public.

This informal roundtable invites individuals of Syrian background across London who
are in someway affected by the crisis- for example: through personal impact
migration, displacement, or separation from family connections having been based in
the UK for many years, or linked by faith connection, nationality etc
. This is an informal exchange to share perspectives. This would be the first event to
introduce you to the project and to invite a chance to share viewpoints and there will
be a follow up visual art workshop on the 13th May to explore some of the issues and
experiences raised through the process of image making through visual art
techniques and processes led by the artist.

Objective
I am hoping to create spaces and opportunities for individuals to share their stories,
put across their experiences, meet others affected and impacted by the conflict and
inform the wider public of the devastating impact of this war. I am inviting you to get
involved and contribute to this project and enable understanding. I am seeking to
reach out to members of the wider community touched by the conflict, build
confidence and sharing personal points of experience and the second stage is to
raise awareness of these issues to the wider public through visual art processperhaps an exhibition or installation though the focus on your involvement at this
stage is on the benefit of your taking part in the roundtable and the workshop.
In return participants will have a chance to share perspectives, contribute to a
support network with fellow Syrians, find a positive way to move forward.
The visual art workshop will also uncover personal issues to you related to your
experiences of the war and atrocities and regime, or your thoughts from your
experience in the UK, as well as helping to develop broader understandings of
individual experiences of the conflict and open deeper perspectives on a nationwide
level. Its not necessary to be an expert on political issues, and your experience is

valid no matter how far/close/big/small.

This project- Reverberations of Conflict: Syrian Voices in London - is a collaboration
between myself and professors at The Institute of Middle Eastern Studies and the
Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Kings College London and the
interfaith charity 3FF.
Context How do we describe trauma of those who experience the conflict from
abroad?

The political process has not been nourished by a deeper human understanding of
this conflict. This is a project focusing on individuals- different generational and
gendered perspectives bringing together Syrian students, families, individuals and
related groups from across London.
Personal Narratives
I am interested in exploring and sharing points of lived experience and personal
narratives of ongoing Syrian civil war of Syrians living here in UK and to provide
informed voices, too often marginalised by the media or government bias.
There is an ongoing debate about how to end the Syrian civil war and bring peace
and reconciliation to its peoples. This project attempts to:

bring home the nature of the uprising, protest and difficulty of peace, connecting

the wider public to those affected by a civil war that has torn Syrian society apart

offer a tangible, empathetic point of access to the atrocities and ongoing

destruction in Syria and raise awareness of the unprecedented refugee crisis in the
region which has led to great displacement
Activity
Through an initial informal discussion, video works and visual art workshop and
potentially a public exhibition by the artist based on any audio/video interviews
conducted and/or the works produced during the workshop- this may be exhibited to
the public in context to raise awareness of such experiences.

Biographies of Roundtable Facilitators

Kai-Oi Joyce Yung- Artist, Educator, Writer https://jayyung.wordpress.com/

Kai-Oi Joyce Yung has an international and influential socially engaged practice which has at
its core outreach and participation across diverse communities. Her award-winning
commissions and exhibitions have dealt with conflict and social change from Hong Kong to
Libya, with The Whitechapel Gallery, the British Council, South London Gallery, Tate, Istanbul
Biennial, and Hong Kong University. She has had solo exhibitions at major venues ranging
from Grundy Art Gallery to Cornerhouse. One of her primary skills is in part to bring together
unlikely collaborative parties to forge inventive and thought-provoking interdisciplinary
platforms. Her collaborations include marine biologists, psychologists, Steven Speilbergs
scriptwriter, academics, taxi drivers, former Alcatraz inmates, engineers and dancers. Her
recent Arts Council England (ACE) funded research and development award and project
across South America involved researching belief and conflict and sacred rituals. Previous
involvement with interfaith dialogue include projects exploring the Holocaust through her EU
funded Munich residency Constructions-Connections, and a Whitechapel Gallery project
called The Mosque. Her ability to catalyse perceptive dialogue and new interactive sensory
works fosters public interrelations towards tolerance and understanding. It is demonstrated
through her British Council residency to Libya, whilst Happy Stacking with Grizedale Arts
deployed her use of arts as a means to broker negotiation and problem solve in response to
complex speed of urban renewal and segregated communities in China.

Professor Michael Kerr

Director of the Middle East & Mediterranean Studies programme and the Centre for the Study
of Divided Societies, and Professor of Conflict Studies. He is a graduate of Essex University
(BA Hons Political Science), and the London School of Economics (MSc Government; PhD
International History) where he was Leverhulme Research Fellow in 2007-08. He is the
author of five books on regulating political conflict in Lebanon and Northern Ireland. His latest
books The Destructors: The Story of Northern Ireland's Lost Peace Process was published by
Irish Academic Press in 2011, Lebanon: After the Cedar Revolution (with Are Knudsen) with
Hurst & Co in 2012 and The Alawi of Syria: War, Faith and Politics in the Levant (with Craig
Larkin) with Hurst & Co in 2015. He is particularly concerned with power-sharing and third
party intervention in divided societies, civil war, and peace processes, particularly with
reference to Lebanon, Syria and Iran and will provide expert and active knowledge, network

links and connections for the fruition of this project.