5000 Miles – Book Illustration Competition!

Working with staff and students at Calderdale College Art & Design Dept.

As part of our new project 5000 miles verd de gris will be producing a book mapping the journey of two boys who fled their homeland in Afghanistan and found sanctuary in the UK.  Working with staff at Calderdale College Art & Design Dept we are designing a brief for Degree students to compete to illustrate the boy’s arduous journey. This competitive brief will encourage the students to respond with imagination and empathy … resulting in a cash prize for the successful student!

Through workshops and creative sessions we will work with the students to explore: the landscape of the boy’s homeland; their day to day routine … the heat, the light of the Afghan climate. We will encourage the students to think deeply about the boy’s plight: their emotional responses; their journey – 5000 miles, mostly on foot – crossing many borders, moving through different landscapes, peoples, towns and villages. And also the maps that represent these different countries!

We will also get to think about the music the boys listen to and sing – music and song is very important to them.

It promises to be an amazing and deeply moving project … and it will be very interesting to see how the students respond.

A drawing of the murder of the father of one of the boy’s by the Taliban.