Salma Zulfiqar – combatting isolation with creativity

Salma Zulfiqar is an award winning visual artist and activist from a migrant background, with roots in the West Midlands. Her work aims to show how we can celebrate migrants and refugees through creativity.

Throughout the pandemic she has been working closely with migrant communities dealing with isolation and needing mental health support. 

Salma explains how she applied for National Lottery Project Grants, our open access programme which is supporting thousands of individual artists, community and cultural organisations during Covid-19, to run ARTconnects online sessions. Designed to help participants learn how they can get creative and improve mental health behind the screen with simple techniques and basic materials found at home.

About the project

Throughout the pandemic, migrant, refugee and LGBT communities have been hit hard. Particularly girls, women and other vulnerable groups. Many of these people remain isolated and are exposed to violence and abuse  – this project has been for them.

The workshops focus on bringing together girls and women from migrant, refugee and host communities to promote better cultural understanding through a combination of visual arts such as drawing, painting, film, poetry and debate.  

With the Black Lives Matters movement and increased tension, racism and discrimination in communities, this is needed more than ever.

The culturally sensitive workshops continued through thick and thin during the height of the Coronavirus crisis, breaking isolation and providing badly needed mental health support. ARTconnects has connected women from African, Asian, Arab and British heritage in a celebration of cultural diversity and solidarity. Support for these women was limited prior to the crisis and the situation is even worse now with no other sources accessible  and ARTconnects is bridging the gap.

Working during the pandemic

With vulnerable, high risk communities cut off from their usual charities and support during the height of the crisis, I continued the project despite all the challenges and obstacles presented by lockdown. 

In April, the groundbreaking project went online. With continued collaboration from UNHCR to strengthen these communities by promoting mental wellbeing and calling for solidarity in the face of adversity. National Lottery Project Grants made it possible to continue this creative lifeline.

I’m now in the process of developing the artwork for the next stage of the project, to continue supporting the most vulnerable during these uncertain times and soon to release a a short film ‘In Solidarity - The Migration Blanket’ which highlights the plight of refugee and migrant women during the crisis and calls for solidarity. 

The next stage is again supported by National Lottery Project Grants and the Midlands Art Centre, which will be completed later this year.

I applied for the grant so that I could develop my digital practice during the height of the pandemic (April-July) and so I could expand my project globally. 

The grant has allowed me the time to achieve this while also conducting a series of international workshops and creating my own artwork reflecting on the crisis. This includes a painting called ‘Global Solidarity’ and a poem called Corona Revolution.

My advice to artists and organisations adjusting to the current climate and dealing with all this uncertainty is to be genuine, show your solidarity and live up to your responsibilities!

More information

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