Following a highly competitive international call-out for artists of any discipline, Cliff Andrade (Portugal), Natalia Kalicki (Poland) and Dana Olărescu were selected to come to ArtHouse Jersey and create individual pieces of work that celebrate the contribution that each of their diaspora communities makes to Island life. The project seeks to address a situation that sees members of these communities feeling as though they are outside of public discourse, their huge contribution to Jersey’s success and prosperity having been inadequately recognised. The artists also contributed to the briefing of Gabriel Pitcher, who will unveil a large mural concentrating on the lived experience of the Portuguese, Poles and Romanians in June 2022. 

During January and February 2022, when Dana was in residence at ArtHouse Jersey, she connected with various Romanians who took time to meet up with her to share their stories. Her resulting works, 'High Value Residency' and 'Square One', critically engage with the policies that guide people's lives and movements on and beyond Jersey, and celebrate the contributions that these people have brought to the broader society. 

These works were presented alongside Cliff Andrade’s and Natalia Kalicki’s works in an exhibition titled ‘Home’ which opened on 12 May, 2022 at Capital House, St Helier, Jersey in the presence of those community members who participated in the project. 

Andy Sibcy ( Jersey Evening Post ) wrote: “It should be compulsory for all candidates taking part in next month’s elections to spend at least half an hour at ArtHouse Jersey’s Capital House gallery to ponder the latest exhibition. [It] invites you to think about the place of culture in the lives of people who have left the home of their birth and moved elsewhere to work and seek happiness. What is it, the exhibition asks, that would make that new place not just somewhere to live but somewhere to call home. The struggle to lay down roots; the unsettling relationship between being of value to the Island and being valued by it; Jersey’s attitude to outsiders and the welcome they receive; and what hurdles they must overcome to find a real home here - these are common to all. Anyone who visits ‘Home’ should feel distinctly unsettled by it - Emile Zola’s J’accuse missive will perhaps come to mind. But it is important to go and reflect.”

Photo credits: Natalie Mayer