Melbourne Artist and Activist Aseel Tayah Wins Two Awards in One Week

Melbourne artist and activist Aseel Tayah has won with two awards in the space of a week.

Last Wednesday Aseel Tayah's work with refugees and asylum seeker communities was recognised with an Award for Excellence in the Arts by the Victorian Multicultural Commission (VMC).

The VMC Awards were presented by the Victorian Governor Linda Dessau and the Premier Daniel Andrews.

"I am honoured to have been recognised for my work, it was a total surprise that someone would nominate me in the first place as I never sought any form of recognition for doing the work I love.

"The Victorian Multicultural Commission is a body that continues to celebrate the achievement of many multicultural Australians and I am deeply honoured to be included as recipient of such an award," said Aseel Tayah.

Aseel Tayah began 2020 with a full calendar scheduled for her show Bukjeh, in which refugee artists share stories of home and culture from inside a repurposed disaster relief tent.

COVID-19 diminished those plans however Aseel adapted her work to a series of digital events presented in Refugee Week. She then sourced and assembled 1000 children's craft packs that were distributed to residents of the North Melbourne public housing towers in home-lockdown in July.

On Sunday following the VMC award, Ms Tayah received the Creative Arts Pioneer Award from the Baasila Muslim Women Acknowledging Women Organising Committee.

"Being recognised as a pioneer by the Baasila Organising Committee has capped off a year which has been challenging to all of us, and particularly women" said Aseel Tayah

Throughout the year she continued to fundraise for children's toy libraries in Gaza. Aseel initiated this project in 2019 and has since raised more than AUD$25,000 to fund 9 libraries, the first ever built in Gaza and the West Bank in Palestinian Occupied Territories.

"I am grateful for these acknowledgements of my efforts, and I, in turn, acknowledge the dozens of collaborators and supporters around me without whom I could not do anything at all. I hope that this recognition will galvanise people to share and connect with others in their communities; it is the millions of these small, personal connections which will create the safer, more inclusive world that we would all so dearly like to see."

https://www.aseeltayah.com/
https://bukjeh.com.au/

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