Upcoming Event at Mingei

Home, away from Home :
Photos of Karen people from the Thailand Burma border

Opening reception
Mingei World Arts
Sunday, June 8
1-4pm

An exhibit of photos taken by Gregory Scarborough
in refugee camps along the Thailand -Burma border in 2005.

The Karen, an ethnic minority group which comprises 1 in 7 of the Burmese population, has been fighting for independence from Burma for more than 50 years. As the fighting has intensified in the last 20 years, many Karen have fled to refugee camps in Thailand and hundreds of thousands more are displaced within Burma. Some Karen refugees are now being resettled in the metro-Atlanta area.

Gregory Scarborough is the founder and director of Cultural Cornerstones, an organization based in Decatur, Georgia which focuses on protecting cultural rights and cultural heritage for refugees and internally displaced peoples in emergency -affected communities. For the past eight years, he has worked extensively with Gypsy populations in Macedonia, with Kurds in Turkish Kurdistan and along the Thailand Burma border documenting life, musical traditions, and the struggle of these people against cultural assimilation and human rights abuses. This work has resulted in two collections of recordings of traditional music, “The Shutka Music Project,” (2001) and “Chave Mini, You Are My Eyes: Songs from Turkish Kurdistan” (Cultural Cornerstones, 2002). Both of these are available for sale at Mingei World Arts.

In 2005, Cultural Cornerstones began working with Karen refugees who have fled from Burma into refugee camps in Thailand to facilitate the protection of their cultural heritage and cultural rights. While in the camps Cultural Cornerstones worked with youth and elders to record a CD of music in Mae La and Umphiem Mai camps which demonstrates the flourishing of their traditions and also tells the story of their struggle through new musical compositions. Gregory Scarborough's report and photo essay from this mission was published in the Fall issue of Cultural Survival.

Cultural Cornerstones is now working to raise money to print a CD of Karen music Greg has recorded along the border. We will be playing this music on June 8, and showing authentic Karen instruments. 10% of all sales that day will go to Cultural Cornerstones.