BRATTLEBORO — What do the concepts of “migration” and “home” mean to people forced to flee a beloved homeland, only to encounter new perils in the country where they land? As America marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, is it fulfilling its promise as a safe and welcoming haven for immigrants “yearning to be free”? These are some of the questions explored in the public artwork on display in the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center’s large, outward-facing window bays.
Organized by Brattleboro artist Jonathan Gitelson, “Migration/Home” consists of seven images — each one eight-feet-tall — created by five members of Brattleboro’s resettled refugee community: Marwa Safa Azimi, Butunga Bibimba, Abdullah Elhan, Sean Kiziltan, and Zuhra Nadem.
“Invited by BMAC to create a public artwork for the 250th, I decided to create an opportunity for a group of local, recently resettled refugee artists here in Brattleboro,” Gitelson said in a news release. The group included members of the ArtLords, a mural collective founded in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2014 and forced to flee their homeland when the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
“We talked a lot about the the...