Over 10 000 tiny refugee figurines have been placed around Dutch cities in an attempt to raise awareness on the plight of refugees. The Moving People street art project was been designed to make the people in these cities more conscious of the 60 million people round the world who have been forced to flee their homes.
The group who came up with the project is Power of Art House, an artistic collective and think tank made up of designers, producers, thinkers and socio-cultural entrepreneurs. Power of Art House uses art as a social weapon against indifference and the Moving People project aims to make refugees more visible and help get their stories heard.
A group of 10 volunteer former refugees from countries including Somalia, Iraq and Rwanda were scanned, modeled and 3D-printed in miniature. The tiny figurines, which measure about 10 centimetres in height, have all been hand painted by an Amsterdam group Pantar. The stories of these 10 refugees are available to read and share on the Moving People website.
In an echo of real life, the figurine refugees are free for people to pick up and move around. They can be displaced, migrated, ignored and taken into the homes of anyone who finds them.
