A Conversation with Sankar Raman and Jim Lommasson moderated by OJMCHE Director Judy Margles
December 15, 2021| Noon
Join us for an illuminating behind the scenes conversation on OJMCHE’s current exhibition To Bear Witness – Extraordinary Lives. Through photographs and profiles, the exhibition captures, shares, and preserves the stories of a small group of individuals from varied backgrounds who left their homelands for safe haven in the United States. Although these refugees had survival on their minds when they first arrived, they jump-started their lives with remarkable determination, finding their way in an alien culture without close family members who could guide and support them. Born in places as far-flung as Bosnia, Iraq, Rwanda, Japan, Sudan, Cambodia, Syria, and Central and Eastern Europe, these men and women witnessed the horrors of war, genocide, famine, or the Holocaust and built new lives in Oregon.
The exhibition is a partnership between OJMCHE and The Immigrant Story, in collaboration with Jim Lommasson and NW Documentary, and presents a multimedia exhibition focused on the lives of 14 refugees who rebuilt their lives in Oregon.
Founded in 2017 by Sankar Raman, who immigrated to the U.S. from India, The Immigrant Story is a volunteer-run nonprofit with a mission to foster empathy and build a more inclusive community by sharing stories of immigrants and refugees who often overcame tremendous odds to reach the United States. Sankar, who has experienced violent, racially-motivated attacks, founded The Immigrant Story in response to a Kansas shooting in February 2017 that killed one Indian American man and injured two others.
The Immigrant Story has collaborated with Portland photographer Jim Lommasson, building upon his project, Stories of Survival, originally produced in collaboration with the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center. His work focuses on objects survivors were able to carry with them on their perilous journeys. From his photographs of the objects, the participants respond with handwritten testimonies — stories, memories, poems, drawings. Their stories speak to the luminous inner life of these ordinary things and testify to the unspeakable anguish of lives forever left behind.
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