The Hamrah Arts Club, founded by artist Nazafarin Lotfi, uses art and creative expression to foster solidarity between refugee and asylum-seeking communities for youth in Tucson.
This article is part of our Radical Futures series, a continuation of the ideas explored in Southwest Contemporary Vol. 10
TUCSON, AZ—We walk up the stairs to the first floor where the education room is. In it are several families—we are all a bit early—and tables are being rearranged into two groups. Food is put on another table. It is the fourth iteration of the program, and it is the middle of Ramadan.
While not organized by MOCA Tucson, the museum has been hosting the Hamrah Arts Club, a creative placemaking program serving refugee-status, asylum, and immigrant youth, since its inception in January 2022. Together with my two-year-old son, Kala, I attended one of the workshops this spring.
Hamrah initially worked with teens in particular, but this time around some have brought their younger siblings. Prior to starting, we all talk, introductory conversation: sharing our names, where we are from, what languages we speak, what role art plays for us. The students help translate for those who are still learning English. Then the teens go to a conference room for a somatic therapy session, the younger students, ages seven to eleven, remain in the education space, and we stay with them. At this point the other family members have left. We make name tags, one side for our native alphabet, the other in the Roman alphabet. We sit around the table sharing more words in our respective languages, and the youngest participant keeps bringing mandarins to Kala. Food plays a big role in the gatherings too, but this month space for fasting is given.
Hamrah, Farsi for “sharing a path” or “fellow traveler,” is a call for coming together and as such was collectively chosen as the name for the club’s gatherings that take place ten weeks every year. The program came into being as a “grassroots, artist-led, rapid response to the large-scale relocation of vulnerable Afghan citizens to Tucson in the aftermath of the final days of the war in Afghanistan in 2021,” says its founder, artist Nazafarin Lotfi.
For me, art at Hamrah was a means of self-expression, a way to tell my story, and share my ideas. It was therapeutic.
Towards the end of 2020, during ongoing lockdowns as a result of Covid-19, Lotfi became a volunteer at a mentorship program for refugee-status youth in Tucson. When quarantine restrictions were lifted, and it became more possible to meet in person, Lotfi continued to mentor several young people from Afghanistan and Syria. Out of their conversations it became clear that there was a need for community and also for space to create. Not finding any existing local structures outside of a school context that fit the particular needs for care, patience, and openness, Lotfi decided to build their own program. Together with three mentees they began to meet at MOCA Tucson on Sunday afternoons.
Although art played a key role in the foundation of Hamrah, the gatherings move beyond art; or, they bring art and life together as mutual extensions of each other. In a conversation with one of Hamrah’s current members, sixteen-year-old Arzu captures the essence of the experience of the arts club: “Before joining Hamrah, I didn’t think I was capable of creating art, but afterwards, I realized that art is not just about drawing. It’s about something that stimulates an individual’s thoughts, emotions, beliefs, or ideas through the senses. For me, art at Hamrah was a means of self-expression, a way to tell my story, and share my ideas. It was therapeutic.”
Over the past four years the program has changed shape—and it continues to do so—based on its participants, their needs, and community support. While the first gatherings followed an open studio format, with materials provided and everyone working on their own project, the second iteration in 2022 was a two-month program that included workshops, visiting artists, and field trips. It then refocused again with a tight group of driven youth in the springs of 2023 and 2024. Out of these last two sessions, more student-led projects originated, such as the creation of protest materials and most notably an oral history project. Throughout its various forms, Lotfi maintained the importance of Hamrah being a place to let go of stress and steam that the youth might experience throughout the week at school as they acclimate to life in a new place.
While art is the common ground for Hamrah, one might say that conversation is one of its main outcomes: not only through speaking, but by breaking bread, playing, and fostering time and space that encourages one to be oneself and perhaps find oneself again in a new country. Sometimes this process is slow; trust needs to be gained and bridges built. Compassion is key.
The oral history project is an extension of this practice of care and conversation that defines Hamrah in the community and roots it into the future. Still a work in progress, Hamrah’s oral history project aims to hear and archive the lived experiences of younger people’s journeys from home to another place. Children assimilate quickly: they learn fast, grow up, their stories—which are not the average teenage experience—often go unheard and are absent from the narrative. Starting in 2023, Hamrah participants came up with a set of questions, being mindful of the difficulty that speaking about past memories may bring, and began interviewing past and current Hamrah members and people in their vicinity.
Our hope is to share these stories with as many people as possible. We want to help others understand what refugees and people of color go through.
As fifteen-year-old Mahdia told me: “We tried to create a safe space where everyone felt comfortable sharing. It was important to us that people felt heard and understood. […] Our hope is to share these stories with as many people as possible. We want to help others understand what refugees and people of color go through.” All interviews will be shared on a forthcoming website, integrating the stories of those who carry our future into the record of our time.
Lotfi and I have often reflected on youth literally being our future, and the importance of listening to and (un)learning from them to further growth on both a personal and societal level. Their future is more open and therefore holds so much space in which to imagine. It is pertinent to the future to foster that space.
In our conversation, Lotfi recalls this beautiful metaphor that subtly points to the interconnectedness of youth and the future of the world at large: “I started gardening in Tucson and landscaping my yard became a serious task during the Covid lockdown. Making a garden is about altering what is available and shaping the future, particularly in the desert where the growth is very slow. Hamrah came from the same place of belief and hope for change: putting the seeds of joy, play, community, imagination, worth, and healing in young people’s lives, knowing they might flourish one day.”
Correction 09/16/24: The date of the inception of the Hamrah Arts Club was corrected from January 2021 to 2022. Nazafarin Lotfi also provided more context about the time of the relocation of Afghan refugees to Tucson in the final days of the war in Afghanistan in 2021, which was added to her quote.
