HOME is the theme of our work with refugee community leaders, community members, Call & Response artists, and allies. With HOME, we are building a space of leading, of coming together, and of celebrating refugees.
Our engagement with refugee communities began in 2016 at the Lynden Sculpture Garden within its 40-acre grounds, as a vibrant laboratory where artists, educators, students, and the general public explore the intersection of art, nature, and culture.
In 2019, through collaborative efforts with partners, we envisioned and celebrated HOME with a community-led outdoor festival at the Lynden that featured the art, food, and performance of Milwaukee’s refugee communities. In the following year, we marked World Refugee Day 2020 by launching this virtual platform—a space for us to connect and explore--with a live, virtual event: HOME 2020.
In 2021, we offered HOME 2021 as a series of dispersed outdoor events spanning the summer, which included a hybrid in-person and virtual launch co-hosted by the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families -- Bureau of Refugee Programs. The annual World Refugee Day and our "HOME days" continued in an entirely in-person series of celebrations in HOME 2022. In HOME 2023, our work included organizing an off-site celebration on the United Nations designated World Refugee Day on June 20 at the prestigious Milwaukee City Hall.
Today, we extend many of these public events alongside our on-going programs and much of our background work with the HOME Refugee Steering Committee that centers around creating a sense of community and togetherness.
With a renewal of long term support and iterations of our HOME work with new partnerships, we hope that HOME World Refugee Day 2024 celebrations, when taken together, will capture the spirit of art, food, fashion, and performance. Each year we invite you to come to the table and to leave with your bellies and hearts full.
All of our World Refugee Day events and HOME programs are free to the public, with no imposed entry or participation fee. To sponsor and support refugee organizers, leaders, performers, craft makers, and other participants from the community, please download our 2024 sponsorship form here or contact Kim Khaira at kkhaira@lyndensculpturegarden.org for more information.
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To make a donation to support HOME, click here.
In the interim, click on any image above to explore the site as we archive past work, post new content, and host live events.