Past Events
Theme of Refugee Week 2022: Healing
Refugee Week 2022 (June 21-26) invites you to explore the theme of ‘Healing’. Through creativity and conversations, Refugee Week 2022 will be a celebration of community, mutual care, and the human ability to start again.
June 2022
For this year’s London Refugee Week, and for KCAW 2022, we are proud to partner with Opera Holland Park, UNHCR, Portobello Market, and the French Institute, to continue our shared passion for using the Arts to spotlight issues that matter, to create social change, and to share meaningful stories – ones that celebrate our shared hopes and dreams.
The Theme for this year’s KCAW 2022 (Kensington + Chelsea Art Week, June 23-July 3): Nourish
Between June 21-July 3
Ungrievable Lives – Where will these refugee children find a home? This powerful installation by artist Caroline Burraway, will be presented during the festival at a secret location. Supported by UNHCR. Curated by KarmaBank. To find it, follow updates @karmabanklondon, #karmabanklondon
June 17
The Do Good Fair 4pm
KarmaBank was selected to be part of a national campaign and featured on the Samsung billboard in Leicester square from the 1st to 8th June for Volunteers’ Week to promote quirky volunteer roles in London and nationally on social media.
To celebrate Volunteers Week, our team members are formally invited to come along to Kings cross Samsung X building on the 17th june from 4:00pm onwards. Register community@karmabank.co
The DO GOOD FAIR is a careers fair styled event promoting the more non-traditional volunteering roles to drive interest and encourage involvement amongst younger audiences. It will be recorded and hosted online after the event. All they need is you, some collateral and some positive energy around volunteering!
June 18
Sickle Cel Anaemia Workshop – The Richard Okorogheye Foundation is helping to raise awareness of Sickle Cel Anaemia. Sharing experiences, with healing through music and dance. Notting Hill Community Church, Kensington Park Road, W11 2ES on June 18th 10:30am-1pm.
June 20
Precarious: New Video Works by Caroline Burraway
6:30PM Tickets https://www.institut-francais.org.uk/cine-lumiere/whats-on/special-screenings/precarious-new-video-works-by-caroline-burraway/
London based multi-media artist Caroline Burraway has been responding to the refugee crisis since 2015 – filming and collecting research material in refugee camps across Europe (including the Jungle in Calais, Eleonas Camp in Athens and Moria Camp in Lesvos) – which she uses as source material for installations, video and large-scale drawings. For the Refugee Week, she presents two recent video works filmed on location in the Aegean Sea.
The screening will be followed by a discussion with Caroline Burraway and composer Charlotte Bray, moderated by Rachel Cunningham (Senior Lecturer in Photography, University of Westminster)
June 24 & 26
Nourish KarmaBank Makers’ Market – A market stall becomes a vehicle of female empowerment. Women from refugee and other backgrounds share their stories and sell self-produced art works, textiles, jewelry, and handicrafts inspired by their homelands and their experiences. Stall is on 24 & 26 June at Portobello Market. Info community@karmabank.co
June 25
Passage – Opera Holland Park & KarmaBank are proud to present a new creative collaboration, integrating opera with poetry and testimony to tell the stories of women in today’s world – especially the lives disrupted by displacement. Opera presented June 25th, 2pm, with reception after.
June 25
OCEANS, 1:55pm. Following the screening of Oceans on 25th June, join a free collage workshop to reflect on the meaning of recycling to protect our deep blue sea. Open to everyone, no matter your skills and abilities, the relaxed workshop will be led by artist Caroline Burraway and all materials will be provided. The workshop is free but booking is required.
Film info & book tickets at https://www.institut-francais.org.uk/cine-lumiere/whats-on/festivals-series/oceans/
June 27 & 30
Footsteps on the Wind – a beautifully animated short film by Maya Sanbar, presented at Ciné Lumière, that follows the harsh child refugee journey of Noor and her brother Joseph.
Screenings on 27 & 30 June before “Becoming Cousteau” and “Fire at Sea.” More info www.institut-francais.org.uk
May 16th
Community Lunch & Activities for Mental Health Awareness Week at the Chelsea Theatre, 7 World’s End Place, London SW10 0DR. A community get-together, with mindfulness activities, badminton, and healthy lunch.
April 7th, Hamburg
World premiere of Ungrievable Lives at Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg.
Charlotte Bray’s Ungrievable Lives is performed by the Castalian String Quartet at Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, on 7 April. The programme also includes works by Mozart and Sibelius.
Ungrievable Lives is heavily inspired by a new installation by London-based artist Caroline Burraway. This installation comprises 13 children’s dresses handmade from discarded refugee lifejackets gathered at the ‘Lifejacket Graveyard’ in Lesvos, Greece. Each dress represents one million of the 13 million child-refugees there are worldwide. They signify ‘absence’, evoking memories of a former life, of family, of love and, ultimately, of loss. Burraway’s installation will be exhibited in the foyer before and after the concert. More information
March 12th
WOW (Women of the World) Festival:
Performance by LYC Cambiata Girls, London Youth Choirs and Royal Festival Hall. The Afghan teenager, we are supporting at LYC, will sing with a choir for the first time on the stage at the Royal Festival Hall.
Mid-March
Paralympics trials. The tetraplegic athlete we are supporting will compete to join the Paralympics GB team. Please support her Paralympics training here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/marinas-paralympics-gb-campaign?qid=7ca81b577dbe710f787fa49757fde61c
