tapestry

our beautiful camp

aarar sundor camp

Influx trilogy: Kutupalong XXL: Aarar sundor camp (our beautiful camp)

EMB0207

“Since we live in this camp, it is beautiful.” The final piece in The Influx Trilogy is about life in the Kutupalong-Balukhali megacamp in Ukhiya, Cox❜s Bazar, Bangladesh. Kutupalong XXL, or Aarar Sundor Camp (Our Beautiful Camp), depicts the sights and scenes of camp life as experienced or imagined by ten young Rohingya women working with the CMC embroidery project in the camp 18. Completed over one month, it features over 80 individual pieces of embroidery stitched onto a cotton backdrop. The tapestry captures the range and the busyness of camp life, from wedding feasts to the movements of aid workers to the hustle and bustle of the camp❜s hundreds of thousands of children at play. The world of the camp is a makeshift world, metaphorized by the patchwork collision of elements, visible seams, bits of unfilled backdrop, and areas of rough stitching. It was constructed organically, with each embroidery artist choosing elements she felt were important to include in the panorama and working on them individually. Mostly, they worked on these pieces in their shelters, then cut out and appliqued them to the cotton backdrop during the thrice weekly meetings at the Camp 18 women-friendly space. The vision for the artwork shifted and expanded with each new contribution. The tapestry❜s central figure is a towering banyan tree. In real life, this tree (which has become an icon of the camps to the outside world) spreads verdant fingers high over the humble shelters and institutional buildings of Balukhali❜s Camp 18. In the background, neat hills roll gently toward a bright blue sky, fluffy with clouds. The natural environment of trees, hills and waterways are juxtaposed with the activities and institutions that characterize refugee life: from NGO buses, the Camp-in-Charge office and the shantikhana (women-friendly space) where the CMC embroidery project is housed, to the many mosques, graveyards, learning centres, football fields, water tanks, etc. found across the camp landscape. In the lower right is a wedding gate ? a marriage is taking place and the feast is being prepared. In an ochre-colored football field to the left, children are kicking around a football. The oversized figure in blue placed quilt❜s lower hem is Shwettaj Jahan Tithi, the Bangladeshi textile designer who facilitated their project.