On display in his school, the Iis Cena, together with his heroine, the street artist Hassani. It arrived in Italy from Lesbos thanks to the humanitarian corridors
IVREA. He started painting in the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos. «I drew everything, I saw a bottle and I drew it, I did nothing else. I also needed it to communicate ». And to make the bars of what he calls a “prison” more human, at least through light and colors. Today his works are exhibited alongside those of his heroine, the Afghan street artist Hassani, in a traveling exhibition which, after passing through the Santa Marta room, arrives in the “welcome school”, like the headmaster of the Iis Cena Enrico Bruno likes to define it. She is Sahar Ibrahimi, she is 17, and since this year she has been attending the fourth P of the commercial services address in Ivrea. The exhibition is sponsored by the Municipality and could soon end up in more important circuits.
Because Sahar suspended in the interrupted time of the refugee camps, it was not idle. In addition to learning to paint, he also started speaking English, which he now juggles very well with. Before he only knew the from, the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan and adopts another alphabet. Even today he entrusts his thoughts to him, because in addition to drawing he loves to write. «I still don’t know how to do it in English or Italian – he says -, but I will soon succeed. I’d also like to do some graphic novels ». The Cantile and Trionfo professors, who are working on her literacy, will help her. And her colleagues Martinet, Taranto and Bonaccini, who are accompanying her on her journey. When she talks about the future, her smile widens and lights up her face. “I still don’t know what I would like to do, maybe the painter, maybe the actress, I’d also like to be a stewardess, but they wouldn’t take me because I’m too short,” she laughs again.
And it is only when we ask her about her past that a few tears join that smile. She struggles to keep it on her face because she doesn’t want to communicate that kind of feeling and emphasizes it. “With my parents – he continues – we lived in Ghazni, then we fled. We spent two years in Iran, but without documents in an “official” school. I attended an institute for Afghan refugees. Then we moved to Turkey and from there we reached Greece. We stayed there for two years in two different camps. I still have many friends who live there, with whom I talk every night. As soon as possible I would like to help them, like all the people in the camps, to tell them that there is hope for everyone, even the women in my country, in Afghanistan ».
On the day of Sahar, however, sadness is only a parenthesis. During the presentation of his exhibition, which was also attended by the councilor Gabriella Colosso, he gave the principal a painting that portrays the entrance to the Cena. “When the operators of Sant’Egidio arrived – he explains – and they told me I would come to Italy, I started dancing for happiness”. On 17 May she arrived in Rome by plane, thanks to the humanitarian corridors project, then from there she took a train to Ivrea. To host his family, 70 Ivrea people joined, through the Migrants Observatory. «Finally I have a place that I can call home – he says with his beaming smile -, a normal life. Now I want to tell the life of migrants, normal life and Afghan women through painting ». Yes, because just like Hassani, Sahar mostly paints women. It is a future without borders that which today, at the age of 17, opens up before her. Now it is all his, the task of drawing the contours.