In 2022, we partnered with Narratio to host the first-ever Narratio Fellowship cohort in Richmond, VA.
The Narratio Fellowship is an intensive storytelling and leadership program aimed at providing resettled refugee youth with the tools and resources to share their narratives and creative works on the world stage. It also provides youth with academic mentorship and advising through partnerships with local organizations, schools, and universities.
Each year, Narratio Fellows begin their journey with a month-long, full-time summer intensive program focused on honing their skills in a particular creative medium.
Twelve Narratio Fellows made up the first Richmond cohort, and they spent their July at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, creating visual art by collaborating on personal and group projects under the leadership of artist-in-residence Alfonso Pérez Acosta.
Our second group of Fellows were generously hosted by the VMHC again, led by artist Celine Anderson to explore poetry and multimedia arts. Throughout July, each artist guides Fellows in representing concepts of story and identity through their art. The Fellows focus on their identity, their connections to each other, and expressing themselves authentically.
In between technical classes, Fellows explore other forms of artistic expression in the Richmond community. They have visited Virginia Commonwealth University, explored galleries at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Institute for Contemporary Art, and made connections with local artists.
At the end of their summer, Fellows host an exhibit to share their work with the community. We’d like to thank the Anderson Gallery and ArtSpace for generously hosting our 2022 and 2023 exhibits.
MEET OUR FELLOWS
Richmond Fellows came together from a multitude of cultural, linguistic, and resettlement backgrounds with the help of local organizations. We’d like to thank the Office of New Americans, Commonwealth Catholic Charities, International Rescue Committee, and the Sacred Heart Center for their collaboration and support of these youth. Our Richmond cohorts have represented 8 countries, spoke 7 different languages, and included youth ages 14 to 23.
All Fellows came to the program at a point of transition in their lives - some were beginning high school, others navigating college or new adult lives, and some navigating a new country. Through partnerships with local organizations, schools, and universities, Fellows receive academic mentorship and advice throughout their program year.
Pictured (left to right, top to bottom):
Sharokh Sahibzada, Valeska Belloza Guevara, Sana Darwazi, Hassina Farhat, Nazira Mohammadi, Fabrice Niyitanga, Gladis Cazun Mejia, Jean Pierre, Sobia Abed, Maryam Hashimi, Lama Ahmed, Frohinda Farhat
Not pictured (2023 cohort):
Moustafa Abdalla, Mubarak Abdalla, Ahmed Asani, Amina Ayazi, Ahmed Haroun, Sara Haroun, Olena Litvinova, Fatima Sakhizada, Jamila Sakhizada, Manizha Safari, Mahyar Vaghei
“When I was painting, I didn't think about the background story. But now, when I'm with them, every time I paint I'm thinking about the background story.”
Fabrice Nyitanga, 2022 Richmond Fellow
MEET OUR ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE
Alfonso Pérez Acosta
Born in Colombia, Alfonso Pérez Acosta graduated with a Fine Arts degree and Masters in Education in Bogotá before coming to the United States in 2015. Richmond has been a place where his artistic practice grew significantly - it has connected him to different people, communities, and organizations to work on creative healing projects and ways of visualizing narrative changes about different cultural identities.
In 2019, Alfonso’s work was recognized as the cover story for the “Top 40 Under 40,” from Richmond’s Style Weekly Magazine, highlighting his role as an Art Program Director with Sacred Heart Center. That same year, he organized and presented the first celebration of National Immigrants Day in Virginia, with a dance and drawing project called Migration Flow. And in November, he had the chance to give a TEDx Youth talk on the different ways we can use creative languages to transform barriers into opportunities.
In 2020, his creative response to the Covid-19 pandemic was Green Portraits, a daily virtually-posted portrait project of people who had recovered from Covid-19 around the world. His mural practice grew during this time as well, and he was part of the “Mending Walls,” project about social justice through public art.
Céline Anderson
Céline Aziza Kaldas Anderson is a multi-media artist and art educator from Roanoke, Virginia. She is a woman art educator of Black and Egyptian descent from the south. Because of her experiences, she believes strongly in the art classroom as a space for positive learning and culturally affirming content. Her first substantial teaching experience was in South Central Los Angeles, working with middle school students.
This and many subsequent years of teaching predominantly Black and Brown students has solidified her faith in the profession to increase student wellness and empowerment. In her work as an educator, she uses the tenets of multicultural education and multilingual education to facilitate inclusive and positive spaces of learning. Celine believes there is no multicultural art education without multilingual art education, and considers multilingual education to pertain to all ways of communicating including African American vernacular which is often discouraged and policed in public schools.
She has designed a multilingual art curriculum based off of the game Lotería which she then published in a local zine so that Virginia educators may begin to center multilingual pedagogy into their classrooms.
NEW YORK TRIP
Each year, our Fellows head to New York City for the Narratio Fellowship’s annual trip.
They spend their first day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art learning about object conservation, exploring museum galleries, participating in workshops, and rolling 4,000-year-old Cylinder seals from Iraq.
Later that day, the Fellows host an exhibit reception or perform their poetry inside the MET museum. In 2022, our Fellows Nazira Mohammadi and Hassina Farhat shared their experiences from the summer intensive and their processes of creating art. In 2023, our Fellows each performed original poetry in the MET‘s gallery space.
Fellow Nazira Mohammadi. Photo credits: Edward Grattan, Narratio.
Photo credits: Narratio.
The next day, Fellows split into smaller groups to explore New York City.
They’ve traveled to many different locations in four New York neighborhoods, including destinations such as Times Square, Bronx Documentary Center, the International Center for Photography, the Statue of Liberty and Edge NYC.
The group reconvenes for dinner at Eat OffBeat, a restaurant that uplifts chefs from refugee and immigrant backgrounds to share cuisine from all over the world.