A work by Zehra Doğan auctioned off for aid to migrants

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The Kur­dish artist Zehra Doğan is putting up for auc­tion one of her works to help in financ­ing oper­a­tions by the NGO Mediter­ranea Sav­ing Humans ded­i­cat­ed to res­cu­ing migrants at sea.

The Ital­ian NGO Mediter­ranea Sav­ing Humans runs search and res­cue oper­a­tions in the cen­tral part of the Mediter­ranean. The work titled “Noah’s Ark” is offered on the Char­i­tyS­tars plat­form, dur­ing an online auc­tion run­ning through April 15. All ben­e­fits will go to Mediter­ranea Sav­ing Humans to help in financ­ing its next mission.

The fate of refugees is one of the ques­tions on which Zehra focuss­es her work.

The work was done dur­ing Zehra’s vis­it in Rome in July 2019. The black lines con­trast­ing on var­i­ous shades of grey and blue rep­re­sent the shock and con­ster­na­tion of a ship­wreck dur­ing a stormy night at sea. The work sym­bol­izes the hope that res­cue ships bring to migrants on the Mediter­ranean, allow­ing them to cross all dan­gers, from the Libyan coast to a safe Euro­pean harbor.

The work is signed by the artist, of course, and on the back, Zehra has writ­ten in Kur­dish: “My gift for Mediter­re­nea” – “Jibo Mediter­ranea miniera di diyariya.”

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Photo credit: Renato Cerisola

Characteristics of the work

Medi­um: Acrylic and felt point on canvas
Edi­tion: orig­i­nal (sole edition)
Size: 99,5 x 80 cm
Loca­tion: Ship­ping will be done from Rome, Italy

To place your bid, go to the CharityStars platform

Concerning the artist

Zehra Doğan is a Kur­dish artist, jour­nal­ist and author from Amed (Diyarbakır) in Turkey. She is one of the found­ing mem­bers and edi­tor-in-chief of a Kur­dish fem­i­nist news agency entire­ly staffed by women.

In 2017, she was sen­tenced to 2 years, 9 months and 22 days in prison for “ter­ror­ist pro­pa­gan­da” fol­low­ing her cov­er­age of the news, one of her pub­li­ca­tions on social media and the shar­ing of a dig­i­tal draw­ing also pub­lished on social media. This draw­ing shows the destruc­tion of Nusay­bin, a Kur­dish town in the South­east of Turkey, fol­low­ing clash­es between the State secu­ri­ty forces and Kur­dish resistants.

She was incar­cer­at­ed in Mardin, Amed, then in Tar­sus. She was lib­er­at­ed from Tar­sus prison on Feb­ru­ary 24 2019.

Zehra Doğan donat­ed “Noah’s Ark” to Mediter­ranea Sav­ing Humans in July 2019, with no pay­ment attached, as a ges­ture of sol­i­dar­i­ty with the orga­ni­za­tion’s mis­sion, at a time when Ital­ian author­i­ties were called upon by the extreme right to penal­ize those help­ing refugees.

The cause

Mediter­ranea is a civil­ian soci­ety plat­form oper­at­ing in the cen­tral Mediter­ranean in order to mon­i­tor, report and con­demn con­di­tions under which women, men and chil­dren are con­stant­ly con­front­ed by tremen­dous dan­ger in the absence of orga­nized res­cue oper­a­tions, suf­fer­ing in silence while the Ital­ian and Euro­pean gov­ern­ments remain indif­fer­ent accomplices.

Mediter­ranea is com­posed of indi­vid­u­als and orga­nized groups, open to the voic­es of dif­fer­ent seg­ments of soci­ety, both sec­u­lar and reli­gious, social and cul­tur­al, unions and polit­i­cal groups who wish to share in the aims of this project in order to restore hope, rebuild human­i­ty and defend the right and the rights of humanity.

Mediter­ranea acts through moral dis­obe­di­ence and civ­il obe­di­ence. Dis­obe­di­ence when it comes to nation­al­ist and xeno­pho­bic pub­lic dis­cours­es and the pro­hitibion against tes­ti­fy­ing to what is hap­pen­ing in the Mediter­ranean: but obe­di­ence to con­sti­tu­tion­al and inter­na­tion­al law, to the Law of the Sea, and to human rights in gen­er­al, includ­ing the oblig­a­tion to res­cue those who are endan­gered and to bring them to a safe harbor.

The main objec­tive is to be there where we are need­ed, to tes­ti­fy and doc­u­ment what is going on and, if nec­es­sary, to save those at risk of dying in the cen­tral Mediter­ranean, as required by exist­ing rules, laws and inter­na­tion­al treaties.

Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
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