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<\/p>\nMaking a career as an artist can be difficult, but finding success can be extra difficult for\u00a0new Canadians and racialized people, says Ben Chapman-Smith, a project leader with the Association for New Canadians (ANC).<\/p>\n
Chapman-Smith leads Pathways to Leadership, a program aimed at tackling that very issue.<\/p>\n
Participants of the program gathered at The Rooms in St. John’s on Saturday to showcase their work. They spoke of the barriers faced by racialized and newcomer artists in their field.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis event is kind of the summation of the project,\u201d Chapman-Smith told CBC News.<\/p>\n
The program pairs youth artists with mentors familiar with the industry. They also meet with an advisory council to discuss the challenges they’re facing.<\/p>\n
\u201cBalancing time and finance and all these things \u2026 they’re made to be significantly harder to overcome when you’re also dealing with things like immigration into a new area,\u201d Chapman-Smith said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Association for New Canadians project leader Ben Chapman-Smith says the Pathways to Leadership program is aimed at tackling barriers experienced by newcomer and refugee artists. (Abby Cole\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Artist Sage Shammakh went through the program, and had his work featured at the event over the weekend.<\/p>\n
As a refugee, Shammakh said making it to Newfoundland and Labrador opened up a world of opportunity, but finding the time to make art and learn where opportunities lie, wasn\u2019t so easy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have also your settlement that you need to deal with. You are adjusting to a completely new environment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Shammakh is originally from the Maldives in South Asia. He later lived in Sri Lanka, but said it was dangerous for him to stay there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got outed, and my country and my community is still not very accepting of you know, gay people or queer people. And so I realized that it was actually a point where if I had returned, it would endanger my life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Shammakh was a refugee with the United Nations for five years before he finally gained settlement in Canada.<\/p>\n
During those five years, he said, his life felt like it was on hold.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s been so wonderful now, like I feel a lot more safer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Artist Sage Shammakh says his piece represents the freedom he wished he had during his time as a refugee. (Abby Cole\/CBC)<\/p>\n
His experience is reflected in his piece titled The Crane That Carried The Sky.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt so caged and I felt like I could not do anything that I really wanted to,\u201d he said. \u201cI look at that and \u2026 that’s the kind of freedom I want, right? I want to be able to take flight.\u201d<\/p>\n
But gaining his footing as an artist in St. John\u2019s wasn\u2019t easy. Shammakh said finding consistent work and opportunities was difficult to do while navigating his settlement process.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are adjusting to a completely new environment,\u201d he said. \u201cI honestly did not even have time to focus on art at all because I was like, ‘I have like rent to pay’ or you know, ‘I have bills and \u2026 I need to make sure I’m stable first.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Shammakh said the ANC was able to help him get over those hurdles. He started volunteering, got a job and joined the Pathways to Leadership program.<\/p>\n
The program partnered him with a mentor who helped him explore his own art and the industry.<\/p>\n
Shammakh hopes to eventually host his first solo exhibit, but also wants to help the community by creating more resources for other artists.<\/p>\n
\u201cSt. John’s, Newfoundland has the most friendly, lovely, welcoming people,” he said. “I want to give back to this community because they have really welcomed and uplifted me.”<\/p>\n
Download our\u00a0free CBC News app<\/a>\u00a0to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our\u00a0daily headlines newsletter here<\/a>. Click\u00a0here to visit our landing page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Making a career as an artist can be difficult, but finding success can be extra difficult for\u00a0new Canadians…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10325,7860,10321,17,10323,10322,10324,10326],"class_list":["post-20524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-anc","tag-artists","tag-ben-chapman-smith","tag-canada","tag-chapman-smith","tag-leadership-program","tag-sage-shammakh","tag-shammakh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}