Born in a Camp

'Born in a Camp' is an entity born within the Rohingya refugee camps. It holds letters, memoirs, stories, write ups and poetry to tell the stories of its community to the world. It travels around the world and ‘nests’ in places to exchange and share. It nests in a place for a while and then move to another, as it continues it’s journey, to show people how anyone can ‘build back strong’. How anyone can have the passion to go beyond, how anyone can practice better, even after the worst happens. Till it finds a good resting place.
The installation is designed in collaboration with a team of passionate Rohingya artisans who have not lost their efforts for passion. Artisans who are just not craftspeople but also thinkers, writers and philosophers from the community. All the panels of the installation are different as they were made and designed by different artisans.. Together these panels make an entity that says something we have learnt from the temporary camps. That is ‘living in impermanence’ doesn’t mean living any less.
Nurul Amin, Razia Begum, Shofiqul Islam, Md Jaber, Khairul Amin, Aminullah, Faysal, Hussain, Nurul Islam, Nor Alom, Ali Johor and others were part of this team to design and make this installation. The entity is a collective of 8 units. Designed in a way that these can be carried easily, to anywhere even in suitcases. The design discussions with the rohingya people opened up many ideas, including how they packed their everything in a suitcase when they had to leave their country. The technicality was explored by individual artisans and came to one solution. Each unit has different expressions from different artisans. Together they offer the plurality of the camp. In fact, of every community.

The installation can have several forms, as the 8 units can be composed in different combination. In fact, that is its aim that it takes different shapes and expresses different moods, just like any other being. This time it comes with it’s letters scattered on the ground, where people can write back too. And add to the installation. These letters/replies go back to the refugees and let them have an exchange of communication.
In August 2017, more than 700000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar fled to Bangladesh, escaping massive genocidal violence and human rights abuse. They were accommodated in the world’s largest refugee camps, in Ukhiya-Teknaf region. After almost five years of working with the refugees, Architect Rizvi Hassan & Khwaja Fatmi worked on making a statement through this installation, that refugees can fight back strong, with their identity more upright, for the world to see. This work doesn’t represent only the Rohingya people, but any other displaced community, who have been going through unimaginable struggles for the mismanagements of the world that we see.

letters from places

write a letter, thought, story or what you want to add to the entity. email us a scanned copy or post to: [email protected]  
​68, elephant road, dhaka-1205, bangladesh