Press viewing of the exhibition Detours

The Nobel Peace Center's new exhibition, Detours, is about people living in forced displacement. The official opening of the exhibition is on the 14^th of March. On Monday, the 13^th of March, at 13.00 to 15.00, we invite the media to a preview. Some of the photographers, whose work appears in the exhibition, will be present.

Detours highlight a topic that is highly relevant in Norway, in Europe and in the US. Through photography and contemporary art, we provide a slightly different image of refugees, than what has become the norm in the media. The exhibition consists of six series of photos and installations, depicting life in forced displacement, in very different ways.

Exile is a photo series, created in partnership with the photo agency Magnum Photos. It shows a stream of refugees, stretching all the way back to the 1940s, documented by legendary photographers, such as Robert Capa, Stuart Franklin and Paolo Pellegrin.

Our Limbo is a diary-inspired portrayal of the lives of five young Syrian women, who travelled to Lebanon to study, before the war broke out. The war has made it impossible for them to return, and now they are stranded in different countries around the world. Documentary photographer, Natalie Naccache, is behind the project, and the exhibition is a combination of her photos and photos taken by the Syrian women.

Live, Love, Refugee is a series of surreal and humorous photographs. Yet, behind every image hides a painful story. The Syrian photographer, Omar Imam, has staged various situations in a refugee camp in Lebanon. He says he wishes to challenge the audience, by disrupting their expectations of images of refugees.

Finding One’s Shadow in the Ruins and Rubble is an art installation, consisting of 31 small light boxes, showcasing images of buildings that have been bombed to pieces, in the Syrian city of Homs. From a distance, it looks beautiful. Yet, as one gets closer, the cruel destructions of war appear, along with the very reason why many Syrians are forced to flee. The creation is by the Vietnamese-American artist, Tiffany Chung, and belongs to the Louisiana Museum of Modern art, in Denmark.

Texting Syria, by photographer Liam Maloney, shows portraits of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, who keep in touch with their family back home, through text messages. The audience receives the messages that were sent, at the exact moment the photo was taken, on their own mobile phones. This way, the audience gets closer to the refugees, to their fears and their worries.

In Syria is my only home, children from Syria tell the story of life in the shadow of war. In short video-documentaries, they speak of life in the refugee camp in Lebanon, about missing their homeland and the dream of one day returning home. The photos in the exhibition were taken with disposable cameras, by the children themselves. The exhibition is made in partnership with the organisation Zakira and Unicef, and has previously been on display on another floor at the Nobel Peace Center.

In addition to photographs and art, the exhibition will also contain a rather unusual bar. In the Bias Bar, people are served prejudices – their own and others’ – against refugees and against the countries accepting refugees.

Welcome to the press viewing of the Detours exhibition, on Monday 13^th of March, at 13.00 to 15.00. The photographers, Liam Maloney, Omar Imam and Natalia Naccache, will be present and available for interviews, at approximately 14.00.

For individual appointments, contact our Director of Information, Ingvill Bryn Rambøl, by phone: 924 52 944, or by email: ibr@nobelpeacecenter.org.

Detours officially opens on Tuesday 14^th of March, at 18.00 o’clock. The press is welcome to the opening.

The exhibition opens to the audience on Wednesday, the 15^th of March, and will remain on display until the 3^rd of September. Read more about the exhibition, at the Nobel Peace Center’s website.