A Home Away From Home by Michelle de Gruijl

Wall Art

Each Creative Action Network poster is hand-printed and handled to make sure that only the highest quality is offered and sent out. The sturdy matte paper and premium inks create a vibrant, museum-quality image that looks great both framed and unframed. Posters are printed in Los Angeles, CA on Epson Enhanced Matte Paper heavyweight stock, with a wide color gamut and Epson UltraChrome HDR ink-jet technology. The framed poster arrives wrapped in a protective yet lightweight black frame and includes a shatter-resistant acrylite front protector that won't break during shipping. International orders may be subject to customs duties & taxes. 

Proceeds Support:

Proceeds support the Anti-Defamation League, the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency, fighting anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights for all. We Were Strangers Too is a collection of designs showing how diverse and universal the refugee experience truly is.

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Design By: Michelle de Gruijl

As an illustrator and anthropologist specialized in conflict resolution, Michelle de Gruijl (Studio Michel Marie) wants to make contemporary social issues more accessible by turning them into illustrations, visual accounts and pieces of graphic journalism. By sharing these stories, she wants to raise knowledge of subjects such as war or inequality and what these mean for other people. In doing so, she wants to motivate and inspire the spectator to develop more empathy and gain understanding of unfamiliar individuals and situations. In June 2016, she published her first piece of graphic journalism about Ahmad on online platform Drawing The Times.

 

Design By: Michelle de Gruijl

As an illustrator and anthropologist specialized in conflict resolution, Michelle de Gruijl (Studio Michel Marie) wants to make contemporary social issues more accessible by turning them into illustrations, visual accounts and pieces of graphic journalism. By sharing these stories, she wants to raise knowledge of subjects such as war or inequality and what these mean for other people. In doing so, she wants to motivate and inspire the spectator to develop more empathy and gain understanding of unfamiliar individuals and situations. In June 2016, she published her first piece of graphic journalism about Ahmad on online platform Drawing The Times.

 

Artist Statement

We've all experienced hard times while facing the choice to either give up or keep fighting. A couple of months ago I spoke to Ahmad, a young doctor who fled Syria. Despite all the horrible things he witnessed, he hold on to his ambitions in life. After a couple of months he was able to find a new home away from home. "Breda was were I was reborn," he told me. "And now I've been accepted to the art academy, I feel like the happiest person on earth." With this illustration, I want to share and pass on Ahmad's perseverance and optimism and show that people can create new beginnings during hard times. — Michelle de Gruijl