Beyond Museum
Our Work
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Photos
Digital tools and platforms often occupy a special place for refugee people, connecting them to vital information and the beloved ones transnationally. With these photos, refugee women share how they see the world around them, becoming the analysts – instead of the other way around. Photos here were taken by whatever tools the participants had, such as second hand smart phones.
Collages and Arts
Refugee people often find creative ways to make sense and tackle multiple indeterminacies. Many of them bring together various fragmented resources to continue their mobility and livelihood projects. Collages and art pieces here represent such creativity, through the action and demonstration of bringing seemingly unrelated pieces of resources together.
Writings
Based on ethnographic writing sessions, refugee women share segments of their stories, as they desire, when they desire.
About Us
Beyond Museum / Müze Ötesi / توسيع نطاق المتحف is a collaborative exhibit of the arts and writings produced by refugee women from Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt between 2018 and 2020 (until the COVID-19 outbreak). Dr. Fulya Pınar organized and moderated this project in the homes and community centers of refugee women in the peripheral districts (Esenyurt and Karagümrük) of Istanbul, through support from the Society for Visual Anthropology – Robert Lemelson Fellowship.
Beyond Museum is a representation of the mixed-media arts and ethnographic writing pieces produced by the refugee women participants. 42 women aged between 19 and 67 participated in the project. Some sessions were moderated by participants who have been engaged in journalism and/or arts. The participants also selected and organized the themes, pieces, and quotes shared on this website.
Refugee women are often under the constant scrutiny of politicians, media, academics, and artists. They are demonstrated through pictures of their faces, bodies, movements to represent ultimate human suffering and victimhood. Fragments of their experiences are shared as depictions of their entire reality as a group. Here at Beyond Museum, refugee women are the analysts and artists, instead of the other way around. They share what they want, in specific ways that they want.
The aim of Beyond Museum has been to provide a venue for refugee women to express themselves through their desired tools, while turning the lens towards the other side, generating a dynamic counter-museum and a counter-archive.
Beyond Museum / Müze Ötesi / توسيع نطاق المتحف 