{"id":173127,"date":"2025-06-10T14:14:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T14:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/173127\/"},"modified":"2025-06-10T14:14:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T14:14:11","slug":"edinburgh-refugee-festival-a-life-in-one-suitcase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/173127\/","title":{"rendered":"Edinburgh Refugee Festival &#8211; A Life in One Suitcase"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As part of the Edinburgh Refugee Festival the organisation, Mission of Innocents, is taking part with <strong>\u201cA Life in One Suitcase\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 evocative dance and vocal performance exploring displacement, belonging, and hope.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Event:<\/strong>\u00a0A Life in One Suitcase<\/li>\n<li><strong>When:\u00a0<\/strong>Friday 13 June at 4.30 PM<\/li>\n<li><strong>Where:<\/strong>\u00a0St. Cuthbert\u2019s Church, Lothian Road, Edinburgh\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>No Admission\u00a0Free<\/strong>\u00a0(Part of the Edinburgh Refugee Festival 2025)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is a powerful multimedia event illuminating the emotional and psychological impact of forced migration through music, movement, and visual art.<\/p>\n<p>The centrepiece of the event is a\u00a040\u201345 minute live vocal and dance performance, created and directed by\u00a0Oksana Saiapina, and presented by\u00a0Mission of Innocents. This performance tells the deeply moving story of a person fleeing their home forever\u2014leaving behind family, memories, and identity\u2014captured through the simple but symbolic object of a suitcase.\u00a0Inside is everything most precious. Inside is a life.<\/p>\n<p>The show features performances from:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Vocalist Karina Chervyakova<\/li>\n<li>Dance group Flowers of Ukraine<\/li>\n<li>Children\u2019s group Kvity Ukrainy, directed by Oksana Saiapina<\/li>\n<li>Children\u2019s choir Harmony, directed by Nataliia Khomenko<\/li>\n<li>Dance group MyWay, directed by Tetiana Gordienko<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The performance will be accompanied by three visual exhibitions that offer a broader reflection on memory, identity, and resilience:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Weight We Carried\u00a0\u2013 A display of personal belongings, symbolic objects, and photographs from Ukrainian refugees who fled war. It poses the searing question:\u00a0If you had to pack your life into one suitcase, what would you take?<\/li>\n<li>Icons on Ammo Boxes\u00a0\u2013 An internationally exhibited project by Spiders of Ukraine, transforming materials of war into sacred icons of peace.<\/li>\n<li>Refugee and Migrant Art Showcase\u00a0\u2013 Paintings, sculpture, textile art and mixed media by displaced artists from across Scotland, marking personal milestones in resettlement.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This event is presented as part of the\u00a0Edinburgh Refugee Festival 2025, with support from the\u00a0Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain,\u00a0Consulate of Ukraine, and the\u00a0Scottish Parliament\u2019s Cross-Party Group on Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0dance segment is organised by Mission of Innocents, a grassroots initiative founded by Joyce Landry, supporting refugee children and families in Scotland through the arts and creative mental health programmes. Their work offers displaced young people tools for expression, healing, and self-worth through song, dance, and storytelling.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"464\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1749564850_755_IMG_2218-\u0423\u043b\u0443\u0447\u0448\u0435\u043d\u043e-\u0423\u043c.-\u0448\u0443\u043c\u0430.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-600882\"  \/><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/theedinburghreporter.co.uk\/2025\/06\/edinburgh-refugee-festival-a-life-in-one-suitcase\/?print=pdf\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1749564850_157_pdf.png\" alt=\"image_pdf\" title=\"View PDF\"\/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/theedinburghreporter.co.uk\/2025\/06\/edinburgh-refugee-festival-a-life-in-one-suitcase\/?print=print\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1749564851_457_print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"m-a-box-avatar-url\" href=\"https:\/\/theedinburghreporter.co.uk\/author\/admin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"100\" height=\"51\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Scotland-Honours-3-of-1.jpg\" class=\"attachment-100x100 size-100x100\" alt=\"\" itemprop=\"image\"  \/><\/a>Like this:<\/p>\n<p>Like Loading&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"sd-link-color\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As part of the Edinburgh Refugee Festival the organisation, Mission of Innocents, is taking part with \u201cA Life&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4154,4155,4884,712,71824,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-173127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-edinburgh-local-news","11":"tag-edinburgh-news","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-st-cuthberts","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114659489551164028","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}