Sudanese Artists Resume Activities Despite Fleeing To Camps Outside Khartoum
(AWP) - Practicing art is not confined to one place or a time, as Sudanese artists continue their creative activities despite fleeing the capital Khartoum towards displacement camps, in the city of Wad Madani in central Sudan.
Four months after the armed conflict broke out in Sudan, visual artist Abu Dharr Nour Eldin is back to painting using the humble materials he managed to salvage while fleeing Khartoum.
He expresses his sadness at the unknown fate of the supplies he left behind amidst the looting and vandalism that marred most of the houses in the neighbourhood where he used to live, in the capital.
He says that he now deploys whatever available materials he can get his hands on to secure a living through drawing and selling his paintings to those interested in visual arts in Wad Madani.
Displaced actress Muzdalifah al-Hajj managed to find work with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) as a performance actress to help alleviate psychological trauma among displaced children in al-Jazirah state.
Muzdalifah said that her profession requires her to work in all circumstances to continue her mission to educate the community and help it deal with its psychological and social crises, no matter how difficult the situation is and despite limited resources.
"When I came here, I thought this could not be the end for me; displaced and [idly] sitting here. We were in a village in al-Manaqil and we came to [Wad] Madani on the grounds that this is the city in which we can fulfil our needs and begin a new chapter. Despite war and challenges there is no way to sit still – we must get back up quickly," she said.
After performing daily musical shows to entertain displaced children, singer Lamiaa al-Fadel and her colleagues are preparing to record songs that call for an end to the war in Sudan and highlight its dire consequences for the Sudanese people.
"Overnight, I found myself without my home, without the environment that I was used to, without my family. I came to a new place in the city of Wad Madani, and I tried as much as possible to adapt to the atmosphere. I still don't feel 100% familiar with it or embraced by it, but these are the conditions of the war," she said.
The war forced thousands of Sudanese artists to flee Khartoum towards displacement camps in nearby cities. They couldn’t afford to rent houses following their displacement at a time when artists already suffered from low wages and deteriorating living conditions even before the war broke out.