Anna Virabyan, an Armenian artist and refugee, has donated a painting to the Department of War Studies in recognition of the confidence and sense of belonging she has gained through her collaborations with the Migration Research Group and King’s Student Action for Refugees (KCL STAR).

Anna painted the artwork as part of a collaborative research piece that she worked on with Dr Leonie Ansems de Vries, Senior Lecturer in the Department of War Studies and Chair of the Migration Research Group. The watercolour, which was the third Art Cabinet piece that Anna created for this interdisciplinary research project, was captured using an alla prima technique.

Leonie first met Anna when she contributed to the Migrant Voices in London project, which involved four London-based migrants filming their daily lives. This project resulted in a short film that consists entirely of their visuals and narratives.

Anna spoke to Leonie about how she uses her art as a medium of expressing her emotions, which has helped her overcome fear and pain. In the video that captures this conversation, you can witness Anna create the painting that she has generously gifted to King’s.

Anna, who currently lives in the UK, was born in Georgia and raised in Russia. Her passion for art stems from a very young age having been raised by artistic parents who encouraged creative expression and design. She pursued her education in art at the Sochi School of Art in Russia. After graduating with a degree in Design Environment, she relocated to the UK in 2010 and pursued her art career, experimenting with realism and flower painting, before her life took on a different direction.

As someone who has fled war and domestic violence, and who has been subject to the UK asylum process, Anna’s art expresses affectively who and how she has continued to become through violence, movement, stillness and silence.

To help others express themselves and overcome challenges they face, Anna provides art workshops for people from a variety of different cultures and backgrounds. Anna has facilitated workshops at King’s and recently ran an art therapy workshop for KCL STAR’s annual conference, ‘Who Are We? Refugees, displaced identities and the question of belonging’.

Discover more of Anna’s work on her Instagram account.

Find out more about how King’s is contributing to understanding and responding to the global issue of forced displacement and helping to realise the educational potential of refugees on the King’s Sanctuary Programme webpage.