OU hosts origami installation for Refugee Week

Beautiful, fragile forms locked in cages – rarely does an art installation come so laden with symbolism as that held at The Open University’s Milton Keynes campus to mark Refugee Week.

The artworks on display – colourful, intricate objects, many recalling birds and animals – were laboriously crafted out of tiny pieces of paper by women migrants and asylum seekers detained in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire.

The exhibition on June 18-19 was organised by OU PhD researcher Joanne Vincett to raise awareness of the experience of migrants and asylum seekers detained indefinitely and living with threat of impending deportation.

All the works, displayed within locked metal cages intended for animals, were ‘thank you’ gifts she had received from Chinese women detained in Yarl’s Wood, where she is a volunteer with Yarl’s Wood Befrienders.

The women use the art of origami (paper folding) to fill their time and help them cope with the anxiety and uncertainty of their situations.

They work with fingernail-sized bits of paper, which they fold and then interlock to build up a figure, a process which can take several days.

Joanne Vincett, who is researching the volunteer work of befrienders to detainees, said she was pleased and ‘shocked’ by the interest in the installation and the amount of Twitter activity it generated. 

“Although Milton Keynes is the next closest large town to Yarl’s Wood after Bedford, it is surprising how few people here know about immigration detention centres and the issues surrounding them,” she said. 

“There is no statutory time limit in detention, so people are confined and don’t know how long for or what the outcome will be, and if they have to leave the country they may be given almost no notice. It’s a situation that causes quite a lot of mental health problems.”

She sees the origami art as a novel and powerful tool to raise awareness. “A lot has been written about the issue of immigration detention, but when you see it presented in this way, it’s tangible, it’s aesthetically pleasing and very symbolic, and it makes quite a statement.”

She is exploring the possibility of doing a further exhibition in the future if a suitable venue can be found.

The installation Origami Art in Immigration Detention was funded by a Santander Research and Scholarship Award with support from The Open University Citizenship and Governance Strategic Research Area. 

It was one of a series of free events held by The Open University to mark Refugee Week 2018.