The vision
“Narrative agency is most important when people are reminded of their own ability to actually do what they are capable of.”
– Ahmed Badr, co-founder of Narratio
The spotlight
When Rayan Mohamed was 4 years old, her family left their home in Mogadishu in the midst of the Somali Civil War. For nine days they traveled by bus across the country. “We moved to different cities that were a little bit safer, and it didn’t work out,” Mohamed said. “And my mother decided it was time to move out of the country.” Eventually they arrived at the Awbare refugee camp in neighboring Ethiopia, intending to spend only one night there. However, with the possibility of returning to their home country, Mohamed’s family decided to apply for asylum in the US. They would spend seven years in the camp before finally getting the opportunity to move to Syracuse, New York in 2014.
In recent years, Mohamed has created short films and poems about her time at the camp. “Any time I want to draw from an experience, it will always be in Ethiopia because it was the most important experience [of] my life,” she said. She described her time there as extremely difficult, with her day-to-day governed by suffocating ordinariness. “Waiting for answers that may or may not come,” she says in one of her poems, “longing for something that exhausts our wishes.” But she was also strengthened by support from her close family of women – her mother, grandmother and sisters. Their steady closeness cultivated an emotional resilience that Mohamed carries with her to this day. “In a cozy tent where memories were made,” reads the poem, “we found comfort in each other’s presence.”
Mohamed recited these lines at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in July. Her performance was part of an arts showcase for Narrationa community that empowers resettled refugee youth to tell their own stories. Through the program, arts and culture professionals skilled in various mediums – including poetry, photography, filmmaking and visual arts – guide participants through an intensive storytelling project.
Rayan Mohamed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this July, participating in a special showcase as part of Narratio’s fifth anniversary. Edward Grattan
“The purpose of the program is to provide opportunities for the fellows to tell stories on their own terms,” explained Brice Nordquist. He founded the Narratio Society in 2019 with Ahmed Badr to combat media representations that flatten and homogenize the refugee experience. By giving displaced young people the opportunity to process their experiences through storytelling – and giving a platform to those stories of individual journeys – they hope to communicate the human side of migration, and its many complexities.
While each migration story is personal, these experiences are becoming increasingly common on our rapidly warming planet. According to recent projections, the number of people displaced by environmental factors is could increase to more than a billion by 2050. And the impact of climate change on global migration is already visible: Since 2008, an estimated 21.5 million people are displaced annually by environmental hazards.
Perceptions of “climate refugees” are often limited to those displaced by acute disasters such as earthquakes, wildfires and floods. But climate change may be one of many complicating factors, or a driving force behind the scenes. “Displacement stories are more complex when you think about their roots,” Nordquist said. Many Narratio fellows are from the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia – regions in which increasing climate threats and environmental degradation increasingly drive migration.
By working with displaced youth, Badr and Nordquist gained a more expansive view of climate displacement, they said. In some cases, congeners’ migration paths illustrate how conflicts over land, food and other natural resources are inextricable from environmental change. In others, they demonstrate climate change’s role as a threat multiplier.
For example, Mohamed’s family initially left Somalia because of the ongoing civil war. But environmental factors drove her family’s eventual move to the United States. During their time in Ethiopia, erratic weather made life in the refugee camp increasingly untenable. Severe droughts have compromised their food and water sources. These dry spells were punctuated by tornadoes and floods, which destroyed makeshift shelters and even drowned young children. This is an example of how climate volatility can drive further involuntary movement – making refugees’ lives even more tenuous, and discouraging displaced people from settling in neighboring countries vulnerable to climate impacts.
And more and more, environmental hazards are becoming the primary cause of displacement. In 2021, for example, most displacements were from Mohamed’s home country of Somalia, “mainly related to climate,” according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Although these conditions can send people over the edge, people usually move within their own countriesincluding in rich countries such as the USA which can be more generally considered resettlement countries.
Nordquist and Badr anticipate a greater focus on environmental issues as the Narratio program expands — as well as a shift in society’s understanding of who is a refugee and who is vulnerable to displacement. “The shape of the program over time could look very different based on the forms of displacement that people increasingly face around the world,” Nordquist said. “We expect the type of people who are being displaced [climate] issues will increase.”
Badr, who has a background in environmental organizing and is himself a former refugee from Iraq, emphasized the importance of settlement venues centering refugee-led perspectives. Throughout Narratio’s five years, the show has reached a cumulative audience of more than 3 million people. Fellows have exhibited their final works at the United Nations, Metropolitan Museum of Art and The New York Times.
He also recognizes the potential for powerful narratives to shape action – both at the societal level, and for the storytellers themselves. By creating stories through the community, participants are reminded of the value of their own experiences, he said. This, in turn, can empower them to use their voices to drive change. “Narrative agency is most important when people are reminded of their own ability to actually do what they are capable of,” Badr said. “It’s just remarkable to see what that process of claiming a story on your own terms can unlock.”
Mohamed had no filmmaking or videography experience before joining the fellowship in 2020. The program gave her access to camera equipment and mentorship from a documentary filmmaker; she also presented her project to journalists, digital content producers and film editors. “All my life I never really felt comfortable sharing my refugee background because I felt that it wasn’t important or that it was something I was ashamed of or had to hide,” Mohamed said.
The community changed that perspective for her. “People were interested in hearing what I had to say,” she said. “[This was] never an experience I had before.” After the Narratio fellowship, she worked on several video projects, including a documentary on mental health in refugee communities. Now, four years later, Mohamed is enrolled in Syracuse University’s film and media arts program and is studying to become a filmmaker. “It’s the thing I love to do the most,” she said. “I don’t just want to tell my story, but [the stories of] people like me and people who are underrepresented.”
— Jess Zhang
More exposure
A parting shot
Musician and composer Ameen Mokdad performs at “Sounds of ink,” an event in the Met’s André Mertens Galleries for Musical Instruments before the Narratio fellows’ storytelling performance this July. Originally from Iraq, Mokdad is a self-taught musician who had to perform his art in secret – risked his life to do so – between 2014 and 2017, when the city of Mosul was occupied by ISIS.
