“Entire life in a Package”, an Art Exhibition organized by the Permanent Mission of Israel

Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

A very warm welcome to the opening of the exhibition “Entire Life in a Package”, brought to the Palais des Nations with the support of the Permanent Missions of Israel, Canada, the United States and to UNHCR. My special thanks to the Permanent Mission of Israel for this initiative and also for generously inviting us to a reception afterwards.

Ladies and gentlemen,
If you had just one box to fill before leaving all other familiar things behind, what would you take?

Orna Ben-Ami, the artist of the exhibition we are opening today, has attempted to capture the life-changing implications of being on the move in her art. For her, millions of migrants and refugees - that’s millions of boxes symbolizing hope and pain. That’s holding on to the memories of the past while on a journey into an unknown future. And that’s the iron strength of an identity as much as iron as a symbol for the weight of the journey.

As a former journalist, Ms. Ben-Ami has long-standing experience of reporting on conflict and the suffering of people. Making the transition into art in 1994, she has exchanged the quill for the metal sculpture to express the hardships of today’s world.

With her exhibition, the artist captures a key issue of our time. Many of us here today have chosen to move across countries for work or to join our families. We all have our own personal experiences of having to fit our lives into boxes. We all know what it means to leave behind a place that we have cherished and people whom we have treasured. And we have all felt the excitement of embarking onto a new adventure.

For millions of people, being on the move is less of a choice. More than 65 million people are forcibly displaced today. If they were all living in the same country it would have a population similar to that of France. Out of those 65 million people, 21 million are refugees; that’s more than the population of Romania. On World Refugee Day, held every year on June 20th, we commemorate the strength, courage and perseverance of millions of people forced to flee.

With this exhibition, Ms. Ben-Ami is shedding light on the fundamental needs of migrants, refugees and displaced persons. Ask people in refugee camps about their most fundamental needs. The one thing that will come up first is not necessarily food nor shelter, but connectivity. They will tell you it’s their cell phones that help them stay in contact with their families and loved ones, reassuring them that they are alive and healthy and waiting for them somewhere. That’s our modern version of a life in a small box.

Here in International Geneva, UNHCR, IOM and the International Committee of the Red Cross, together with many others, form a hub of collective action that has a real impact on the realities of each and every migrant and refugee. Thank you once again to the Permanent Mission of Israel for bringing this crucial topic to our minds and for making it part of our programme of cultural diplomacy.

Thank you all for being here and please enjoy the exhibition.