DORCHESTER Corn Exchange gallery is the setting for a powerful and challenging exhibition, Ungrievable Lives, from Saturday 18th to Monday 20th October, open from 10am to 4pm, with free entry. There is also a free panel discussion on Saturday from 4 to 6pm, and a diversity flag workshop on Sunday from 11am.
Ungrievable Lives brings together two large-scale textile-based artworks that look at migration in different ways. Caroline Burraway’s Ungrievable Lives – 13 children’s dresses handmade from lifejackets the artist gathered from the Lifejacket Graveyard on the Greek island of Lesvos, each hung from a weighing scale and stood on a bed of sand. Each dress represents 1 million of the 13 million child refugees worldwide (pre-Ukraine).
Gil Mualem-Doron’s The New Union Flag (NUF) reimagines the traditional Union Jack to reflect the UK’s rich multicultural heritage. The installation will be accompanied by a specially created soundscape.
The exhibition is a joint venture by Dorchester Arts, b-side and Shire Hall Historic Courthouse Museum..
On Saturday at 4pm, Caroline and Gil will be joined by Laney White (Portland Global Friendship Group) and Rocca Holly-Nambi (director, b-side) for a discussion about the artworks, exploring their origins and their connection to the themes of migration and belonging in Dorset. The event will include time for questions, open dialogue, and the opportunity to view the artworks with the artists following the discussion.
On Sunday at 11am, Gil will lead a My Diversity Flag workshop, part of the New Union Flag (NUF) project. The project reimagines the Union Flag to reflect the rich, ever-changing society we live in – celebrating the many communities that continue to shape the UK’s cultural identity.
Multidisciplinary artist Caroline Burraway’s work confronts socio-political conflicts and cultural ruptures between and within communities, engaging the viewer in conversation around these issues. She has been responding to the refugee crisis since 2015, gathering research material from camps across Europe to produce mixed-media installations, large-scale drawings, sculptures, soundscapes and videos to provoke a humanistic response to the twin issues of displacement and dispossession in our compassion-fatigued world.
Gil Mualem-Doron is a socially engaged artist whose work explores identity, migration and belonging through participatory art and design. His projects, including the New Union Flag, have been exhibited at Tate Modern, Turner Contemporary, the People’s History Museum and the Southbank Centre, with a lived experience, engaging refugees, migrants, and communities in reimagining national symbols and collective identity.