For the interactive cross-media documentary ‘Refugee Republic’, artist Jan Rothuizen travelled to northern Iraq to record daily life in one of the biggest refugee camps in the region.
He found that refugee camps quickly become mini-societies, where the refugee-citizens make home improvements, go to the bakery, look for work or start up a business, seek entertainment, fall in love, argue with neighbours, get married and have children, who also go to day-care centres after school.
The web version of ‘Refugee Republic’ takes you to Camp Domiz in northern Iraq, where around 64,000 predominantly Kurdish Syrian refugees have sought shelter. In his distinctive way, Jan Rothuizen drew a ‘soft atlas’ of the camp. Serving as the basis for the project, this map is enriched with stories and imagery by multimedia journalist Martijn van Tol and photographer Dirk Jan Visser.
www.refugeerepublic.submarinechannel.com
