This is NOT a Refuge!
2019
Laser-cut and resin-coated aluminum

This Is NOT A Refuge! reflects on the complex issues that result from displacement associated with people seeking refuge through immigration. This project explores the communal loss of loved ones, identities, homes, and countries experienced globally by people around the world ravaged by the atrocities of war, displacement, and political oppression. The installation depicts an illuminated shelter that beckons like a mirage, beautiful from afar, shining warmth at night and welcoming travelers who have experienced immense trials on their journeys to safety. Yet on closer observation, it provides neither protection from the elements nor privacy from prying eyes. A walk around the sculpture brings to mind the metaphorical passage of the sun and the passing of time. Viewers may think of the homeless populations closer to home within our own country and raise a voice on their behalf. For those who have escaped horrific circumstances and found haven, I applaud them and wish god-speed to the others who are still toiling at the borders, crossing deserts, mountains and water, risking everything to find refuge. Second chances given through resettlement in new lands may provide respite for the few who have found safe havens but they too will always carry with them a deep sense of loss. May we all find compassion, humility, and kindness and not bemoan the loss to our own humanity by turning a blind eye.

About the artist

Anila Quayyum Agha is internationally recognized for her award-winning large-scale installations that use light, shadow and pattern to create inclusive, immersive and shared experiences. Working in a cross-disciplinary fashion with architectural structures and motifs, Agha creates structures that reference themes of global politics, cultural identity, mass media and social/gender roles.  Mixing reflections and shadows with solid forms and often transposing the resulting effect, her artwork aspires simultaneously to be perceptually soothing and conceptually challenging. Agha’s work is not about religions, but instead is a contemplation on the nature of boundaries and alienation, and on the power of dialogue to transcend the barriers of gender, race, religion, culture and the natural environment that prevent the true intersections and exchanges amongst world populations/ cultures. 

Agha received her BFA from the National College of Arts, Lahore and an MFA from the University of North Texas. She has had major national and international solo shows including the Kew, Shirley Sherwood Galleries - Royal Botanical Gardens, in London, UK; Museum of Oriental Art, in Turin, Italy; The Bruce Museum in  Greenwich, CT; Cummer Museum of Art, in Jacksonville, FL; Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort  Worth, TX; Columbia Art Museum in South Carolina; Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA; National  Sculpture Museum in Valladolid, Spain; The Dallas Contemporary Art Museum; Cincinnati Art Museum; the  Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville, FL; Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, OK; North Carolina Art  Museum in Raleigh; and the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio. She was included in a group exhibition, She Persists, at the 2019 Venice Biennale and has received many awards and research grants for her work.