The Refugee Experience
By Turodrique Fuad & Marc Yergovich
"Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City," a traveling exhibition by Doctors without Borders (Medecins sans Frontieres) designed to raise awareness of refugee life, is scheduled to arrive in New York and Los Angeles this month. Our Web design studio, Papermedia, built a complementary exhibition site. We hoped to increase awareness of this group's work beyond the two cities and to supplement the exhibit visitors' experience.
Papermedia designs two pro bono sites a year, and members of our shop thought that communicating the mindset of a refugee would be both an interesting design challenge and a worthy Web site.
The traveling refugee camp will give visitors a taste of camp life. Tour guides will bring visitors through the structures found in different types of camps in various climates, demonstrating how latrines work and many other facets of a refugee's daily existence.
Doctors without Borders wanted the site (www.refugeecamp.org) to reflect the exhibit. We set out to present an experience that would mirror what a visitor to the physical exhibition would see, touch, and feel. The organization also wanted the site to present factual information and not function as a dramatic tearjerker to solicit sympathy or donations. The organization also wanted to communicate the sense of confusion, chaos, and displacement that comes as a result of becoming a refugee.
Two members of our team added their personal perspectives to our design work, as one had been a refugee and another had received a grant to study life in a refugee camp.
