Author: cronbaugh.4

DISPLAYced

On Wednesday 27 March I went to DISPLAYced – an art exhibition put on in TRISM in order to showcase art by local artists who are also refugees or immigrants. This event was a non-IA and social event. I greatly enjoyed this community event, as it seemed to bring together all sorts of different people from the broader Columbus community – from Ohio State students to young professionals, to more long-standing members of the greater Columbus community. This event served to celebrate the art of several local artists who are refugees or immigrants, as well as to fundraise for the organizations Community Refugee and Immigration Services (CRIS), and World Relief – two refugee resettlement organizations.  

This event was the result of the vision and hard work of several students from Ohio State’s Honors Cohort business program in the Fisher College of Business. After looking around at all the different pieces, some of which were for auction and had even been donated towards the fundraising cause, I got to speak to one of the students on the team that made this project a reality. He referred to the dedication and different passions that all seven members had, which when combined led to a unified passion for making a project to honor Columbus’s refugee and immigrant community through a celebration of art. I was curious about how their cohort went about organizing the event. The student described how they started with only one or two contacts who knew about local artists, but as they talked to more and more people, they were able to find more local artists willing to contribute. I had never even heard of Ohio State’s Honors Cohort business program before, and so greatly appreciated learning more about their group and what they do. I’m curious to know how many donations they received! 

The artwork was set up around TRISM so that guests could look around at the various pieces and mingle at the same time, as well as enjoy some complimentary refreshments (including really yummy beet hummus!) The cohort also asked for donations as entry to the event, and had information booths for the two refugee resettlement organizations set up in the space as well.  

Not only was I impressed by the event itself and the way it had been set up, but the artwork on display was incredibly moving. There were scenes of leaving a homeland, and a series of portraits by an amazingly talented photographer who also does portraits for Community Refugee and Immigration Services.  

Overall, to me it felt like an honor to be able to enter a space set aside for celebrating and telling the truly incredible stories of the new American communities in our very own city. I think that to be able to welcome in, respect, and value these kinds of stories is vital as a community striving to welcome in those who have had to leave much behind to create a new life in an entirely new place.  

Star House Volunteering

On Saturday 16 February, I and several other IA Scholars went to Columbus’s Star House for a morning of volunteering.  While we there, we sorted through clothing donations in their back warehouse, in order for staff members to be able to more easily find items, like clothing or toiletries, that guests have requested.

Star House was founded in 2006 by Ohio State University Department of Human Sciences faculty member Dr. Natasha Slesnick. She had moved from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Columbus, and was surprised to learn that there were no programs for homeless youth in the city, and so set about founding Star House in order to fill this gap. Because of this, Star House was technically a part of Ohio State for a long time, however, in order to better pursue programs and funding that will better serve the community of youth experiencing homelessness in Columbus, they recently became their own independent, separate entity. Today Star House is no longer run by Dr. Slesnick, but by Ms. Ann Bischoff.

Additionally, as we learned when we got there, Star House is not actually a shelter, even though many mistake it to be (I did!). It’s a 24/7 drop-in center, which differs from a shelter in that guests are not permitted to spend the night. As a drop-in center, youth from the ages of 14-24 can access resources they traditionally should/would be able to access at home at Star House. This includes a fully functioning and stocked kitchen, homework help, and other resources. Mainly, though, Star House seeks to reconnect or connect transitional youth to the resources of their community. It’s a safe place where youth experiencing homelessness can begin to access stabilizing resources, such as housing, clinical therapy, and employment opportunities.  

One of the things I appreciated most about our trip was the way that their volunteer coordinator took time to tell us about the history and mission, as well as the practical side of day-to-day programs, that make Star House what it is. I think that for any service opportunity, no matter what you’re doing or how significant or insignificant it may seem, there’s a huge chance to engage with the organization or group with whom you’re volunteering in order to gain unique perspective on their role in the community. I was grateful that Star House’s volunteer coordinator took time out of her busy schedule to share with us the bigger picture of what goes on beyond the four walls of the warehouse where we sorted donations, and the four hours of our weekend that we spent there.  

I was specifically encouraged by the fact that it was an Ohio State University faculty member who founded this organization. In my opinion, it’s easy for this university to become a bubble, isolated from the broader community around us (especially for students living on campus). I am always deeply encouraged, challenged, and inspired by those who intentionally step outside of this community in order to connect Ohio State’s vast resources to the life-ways of the Columbus around us.  

German House Politics and History Conversation

Pretzels, hot chocolate, and the entire history of Germany fit into 30 minutes! Some only dream of spending their Thursday evenings this way. I got to spend Thursday this way, when, on 31 January, I attended a German Politics and History night hosted in Ohio State’s German House.

Warmed by the homemade pretzels in our hands, and fascinated by German house (for students who live in dorms, I think it’s always exciting to spend time in an actual house), IA Teaching Assistant Kate Greer shared her knowledge of German history with us – from the original Germanic tribes, up until today’s refugee crisis.  

I was especially intrigued to hear about Germany’s role and responses in the refugee crisis. Germany has the highest foreign-born population in Europe, and the second highest in the world (right after the United States). It also has the second-highest immigrant population in Europe, right after the Russian Federation. This means that the topic of immigration and refugee asylum seekers is incredibly relevant to current German politics, and everyday life.   

Kate described a national tension between groups of German citizens seeking to preserve their national identity, and those who are willing to welcome in newcomers from other areas of the world. She listed the three main political parties in Germany – the Social Democrats (SPD), the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and Alternative for Germany (AfD). SPD, as Kate explained it, leans far to the left, CDU holds more centrist political views, and AfD is very, very right-leaning. AfD was first founded 6 years ago, and first held seats in the Bundestag (German parliament) in 2014. As of 2017 however, they became the largest opposition party to hold seats in the Bundestag. This is worthy to note, and concerning to many, as AfD is linked to xenophobic, nationalist, and even neo-Nazi tendencies. It is the first time a political party with such tendencies has held a spot in German government since the Second World War.  

Not only did I appreciate learning more about German history and modern-day politics, but I was fascinated to be in German house itself. German house is the only university residence at Ohio State with a living community centered on a language. As someone with a passion for Russian language, I can’t say I haven’t been a little envious whenever I’ve walked past German house. At the conversation night, we learned that German house is not actually an OSU-based project, but is a result of a generous gift from the Max Kade Foundation. The Max Kade Foundation seeks to promote scientific and technological progress, to further the peaceful coexistence of nations, and to advance German-American relations. Upon further research, I found that there are 34 Max Kade houses at various universities throughout the United States. I think having a space where students can engage in multiple aspects of language acquisition (academic, social, professional etc.) all at once is really beneficial to the language learning process.

 

CRIS Tree of Hope Mural Painting

On Saturday 1 December, I and many other IA Scholars, helped in the painting of a mural at Columbus Global Academy, a Columbus city school primarily for students new to the United States. This mural project was planned and executed by a partnership of Ohio State’s IA Scholars and Community Refugee and Immigration Services (CRIS). This is the fourth mural completed by or in partnership with CRIS at Columbus Global Academy.   

IA’s Service Chair helped facilitate and organize the students who volunteered to help paint the mural and secured a grant from OSU in order make the project happen. It was also IA students who co-designed the mural, entitled “Tree of Hope”, with each animal on the tree depicting folklore from different countries represented at Columbus Global Academy.  

I appreciate the imagery of the child underneath the tree reading among the animals – each one on a different branch telling a different story from a different homeland to the child underneath the tree. Not only do the animals represent the school’s diversity, but I also think it shows the way that many kids who attend Columbus Global Academy are and will be formed and shaped by many different “branches” from many different places, with many different stories. I think this is cool, as many cross-cultural kids (CCK’s) talk about how important it is to have time and space to transition to their new environment, but also to have an environment to recognize the hodge-podge of cultures and identities that make up who they are, even when those things can be hard for outsiders to understand or see. This was something that struck close to home for me personally, as a CCK who has moved to new countries and new environments throughout my whole life.  

The partnership that exists between CRIS and IA is a good representation of the real-life impact that being an International Affairs scholar can have. In my opinion, a willingness to engage in, respect, and learn more about the international communities around us, starting here in Columbus, is one of the most important and active ways we, as IA Scholars, can grow in multi-faceted perspective of the global world we live in.  

I’ve enjoyed every time I’ve been at Columbus Global Academy with CRIS, and would love to keep learning more about the school. For example, I’m curious about how  they work their curriculum in order to accommodate the transition of CGA students to American life and culture. I also recently learned there are faculty members from OSU who also work in partnership with Columbus Global Academy. I would be interested to learn about what other ways OSU programs are involved at this school.  

While it will become just a small part of everyday life for many of CGA’s students, I hope that this mural can be a symbol for the way that those in the broader Columbus community seek to invest in, encourage, and see the students of Columbus Global Academy succeed.

I Am Not a Witch: Global Engagement International Film Night

On Wednesday 25 October, I went to see a screening of the film I Am Not a Witch, as a part of the Global Engagement International Film Nights, hosted at Gateway Film Center.  

This is a film that will shake you for reasons you probably won’t be able to name. At least, that’s what it did to me. Zambian-born and Welsh-raised director Rungano Nyoni paints the experience of a young girl accused of witchcraft through a lens that follows the symbolic ribbon of the absurdity with which witchcraft is snaked through Zambian communities – affecting education, tourism, weather, business, and many other parts of daily life.  

While this film is still powerful without context, in order to truly soak up what Nyoni is doing with her film, it was helpful for me to get some more background on the conversation surrounding modern witchcraft and its societal implications in today’s Zambia. Witch camps are a real part of life in Zambian communities – women and sometimes young girls are often held in them and kept under the power of men in charge. The camps are basically prisons that function as tourist attractions and centers for slave labor. According to Rungano Nyoni’s research for this film – which comes from living in Zambia, and a month spent staying with women in witch camps – it’s often the most vulnerable that end up in these camps.  

“It’s not the belief that I’m against, or that I question,” Nyoni says in an interview with magazine  Mysterious Universe, “because spooky things happen all the time in Zambia. It’s that the witch accusations, are always aimed at older women or children. This is the bit I find absurd.”  

She uses her film to visually represent real life situations in a way that subtly calls out its absurdity. Her film is not angry or preachy; Nyoni confidently and satirically uses her craft to honestly describe a way of life that brings oppression on the vulnerable in Zambian communities.  

The film centers around a young girl given the name Shula by one of the older women in the camp – Shula means “uprooted” and is a good representation of her story. She’s picked up by the police and put into a witch camp after a villager accuses her of witchcraft, because Shula startled her, causing her to drop the water she was carrying. We never get to know Shula in detail – we never meet her family, or even know where she’s from. We meet the government official who parades her around for financial gain, and we’re shown the affection and care with which some of the older women also in the witch-camp take care of her. In my opinion, one of the most visually profound parts of the film is the giant ribbon truck, which holds the spools of ribbon that keep the witches captive, and holds their identity as witches.

 

 

*spoiler alert* Shula’s death is just as ambiguous as her life. Did Shula kill herself? Was she murdered? Or did she die just from the sheer exhaustion of what it means to have the identity of being a modern-day witch put on you?  

I believe we don’t need to know what exactly happened to her – because we do know, we know what happens to those living for real in witch camps in Zambia today, and Nyoni is calling us to pay attention.  

In the Last Days of the City Film-Screening

On Monday 17 September, I went to see a screening of the film “In the Last Days of the City” featuring a Q&A with filmmaker Tamer El-Said, hosted at the Wexner Center for the Arts.  

In the Last Days of the City is a hard film to process and a hard film to forget. If I had to boil it down to words, I would describe it as a painting of the soul of the city of Cairo in a time of great emotional instability. The film looks at the city of Cairo through the eyes of local filmmaker Khalid in the months leading up to the revolution on Tahrir square that ousted President Hosny Mubarak from power. It’s an intimate look at the pre-grieving of a people knowing that their home is about to change forever.  

While that sounds like the makings for a film inherently political, following people angry and asking for change, that is not what this film is. It’s more of a deeply personal reconciliation or space for the emotions of a city, expressed through film. As El-Said described in our Q&A after the film screening, the main character is not Khalid, but rather the city of Cairo itself. Cairo unfurls her anger, her sadness, her hope, her history through the people Khalid shows us, and the ways he interacts with them. There’s a parallel in the film between the work an elderly calligrapher and poet is working on, and the work that Khalid does. The camera cuts to a scene with the calligrapher intent on his work, drawing with the help of a magnifying glass. Later we see the window of Khalid’s apartment with a similar magnifying glass hanging down from the ceiling, looking out to the city. In this way, El-Said helps us see Cairo as a poem.  

This film is deeply personal for El-Said. The everyday people the camera shows the audience – an old woman selling carnations, a man selling steering wheel covers – are people El-Said also sees everyday on his way from home to his office. The apartment used as Khalid’s apartment is even El-Said’s own home. It’s through these personal physical spaces that we, as an audience, are invited into a more personal, emotional space that explores the tension of being part of a city on the brink of great change.  

I really appreciated the Q&A with El-Said after the film. One of his points that struck me the most was how after the revolution that ousted Mubarak, the broader film world was seeking films that depicted the physical events of Tahrir square. He described how some producers came to him, saying they wanted to help with his film, but only if he added even forty seconds at the end to show Tahrir square.  

It’s not that Tahrir square is not important to El-Said, as he himself participated in the revolution; however, to add in those events would detract from what In the Last Days of the City is about. This struck me as something I’ve heard before. It seems a tendency to me that when broader industries of Western arts and academia seek representation of international stories, they often do so in strongly politicized ways – seeking the stories they want to hear. What El-Said does with this film is tell a story that he and, I hope, the city of Cairo want to tell.

CRIS Connect

At the beginning of this school year I attended a Language Garden Project at Columbus Global Academy (CGA – a school for refugee and immigrant children transitioning to life in America). This effort is run by  Community Refugee and Immigration Services (CRIS) – a refugee resettlement agency in Columbus, with the goal of  turning the school’s courtyard into a therapeutic garden complete with a mural featuring flags as well as flora from the different nationalities represented at the school.

Mural at the CGA courtyard

Later, I was invited to be a part of a committee to form an on campus student organization for CRIS – CRIS Connect – that will serve as a liaison between CRIS, the Ohio State student body and growing number of OSU mentors in CRIS, and the Columbus community. It’s been interesting being a part of an organization that is still in the process of being formed. At first I was intimidated, because I wasn’t sure how I could be of help as a freshman. However, the other members of the committee have been absolutely welcoming. I’ve been inspired by their accomplishments and leadership abilities as upperclassmen. I’ve also learned so much, not only about the work done through CRIS, but also about how student organizations can be formed at OSU.

Having recently moved to the United States, I can understand the strangeness and scariness of cross-cultural transition. My own transition has been far different from those who have been forced to leave their home countries due to traumatic circumstances, but it has fueled my value of CRIS’s core mission – to provide support for Columbus’s international community.