#art #social #2021/ ![[BreakingBordersThroughArt_BIRA.jpg]] [humanity on the move](https://humanityonthemove.pt/) is a movement that focuses on fighting for the human rights of refugees and asylum seekers. its mission is to educate and make everyone part of making humanity a better place. hom created *breaking borders through art*, a project that aimed to bring artists and asylum seekers/refugees together to generate empathy and personal relationships, combat loneliness, deconstruct prejudices, raise awareness and alert the european community while stimulating an appreciation of cultural differences. the aim was to bring together european artists with asylum seekers/refugees to create works of art, which would then be auctioned off to the british ngo donate4refugees to help refugees and asylum seekers in the balkans. as part of this project, we connected with a 19-year-old refugee from sierra leone who was currently in the samos refugee camp in greece. just like us, a human being was forced to leave his country because of his sexual orientation at the risk of being killed. we ended up talking for several hours, and he told us his story, what his life had been like up until now, with all the details, horrors, and mishaps. he told us about his journey from sierra leone to greece, where he was beaten, imprisoned, enslaved, deceived and forced to make long, tiring journeys on foot. about all the horrors and misfortunes he witnessed and lived through. working and talking with him showed us that no matter how bad our circumstances or our lousy luck, we should always try to learn lessons and be positive. being optimistic about life when it's anything but positive for us can be an arduous challenge. still, from him, we knew that it can be done and makes us remarkable and inspiring human beings. inspired by saas, that's how we created "wearing the weights of discrimination", an installation consisting of a waistcoat and a set of weights representing a type of discrimination. the weights were labelled homosexuality, blacks, slavery, orphanhood, lost childhood, muslims, refugees, misfortune, loneliness, and you. "wearing the weight of discrimination" is an art installation that aims to convey the message that discrimination weighs! it weighs on the shoulders of everyone who feels it daily because of their colour, ethnicity, sexual orientation, status or simply because of the vicissitudes of life. this installation invites you to "wear the burdens of discrimination" and feel how much they pull you back. the impact they have on you and the way you present yourself to the world. you might think that the vast extent of this phenomenon would generate awareness and acceptance, but the reality is quite different. at a time when discrimination, prejudice, racism and xenophobia are on the rise, there are legal, moral and economic imperatives to defend people's fundamental rights, values and freedoms and to fight for more cohesive societies. and although we live in a changing world, change doesn't happen everywhere. ![[s.jpg]]