Donald Trump and right wing politicians in Europe ‘inspire’ more and more people to close their hearts to refugees. Perhaps art can be effective where politics fail. In New York last month, hundreds of life jackets ‘washed up’ onto the shore. In a re-creation of an increasingly common scene in Europe, the beach was littered with life vests. The life jackets came from the beaches of Chios, Greece, discarded there by real-life refugees who survived the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean Sea. More than 55,000 life jackets have been found on the island to date (and another 100,000 have been found nearby on the white sands of Samos and Lesbos). Worldwide there are 65 million displaced people; 21.3 million are refugees. More than half are children under the age of 18.
Where politics fails, art calls for empathy with refugees
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