Bridging Boundaries through Art: Peacepainting Workshop with Refugees and Locals in Bindal

In collaboration with Bindal Municipality, we organized a Peacepainting workshop at Bindal Museum on Saturday, September 9th 2023. The workshop was led by Catrine Gangstø and Nataliia Chernousova-Busch, in partnership with May-Lene Øren, who serves as an integration consultant in Bindal Municipality. Nataliia is a new Peacepainting instructor, and this was her first collaboration with Catrine.

An Inspiring Workshop

The Peacepainting participants included both locals of Bindal Municipality and refugees who have recently relocated to Bindal. In total, there were 15 participants present, both adults and children. A significant portion of the group consisted of refugees from Ukraine, and Nataliia acted as a translator to ensure that everyone could participate and understand the instructions.

The painting workshop was a great success, and participants expressed their desire to attend more such events in the future. The atmosphere was very positive and inspiring.

After the painting workshop, there was a break where participants had a meal together, creating an atmosphere of camaraderie and fellowship.

Outdoor Art Exhibition by the Sea

To conclude the workshop, the paintings created were taken outside the museum, which is located by the sea. There we organized a small, interactive exhibition for the participants. Catrine and Nataliia presented each painting to the group along with the participant’s title and text. Participants took great pleasure in sharing and discussing their artwork with each other.

It was a wonderful event taking place in Bindal, where it was again shown how Peacepainting easily bridges the gap between people and creates a common platform for people to share and communicate beyond words.