Darcy Ataman, an artist/producer and the Founder of Make Music Matter, introduces a project to support and raise awareness on the response to refugees and displaced persons through a visceral art installation. Ataman’s overseas experiences with MMM exposed him to the effects of forced migration. Motivated by the words, “We know no one is coming to save us and why,” he created Travel Safe to break the cycle and inspire action to address these issues.

“Travel Safe” is about the struggle to communicate our collective humanity, and the challenge of how we process the unimaginable consequences of forced migration in a time when apathy and desensitization have become commonplace. Comprised of the shoes of approximately 3,000 refugees and internally displaced peoples from 25 countries, it engages the tension between realism and impressionism in utilizing the tragic image of Alan Kurdi.

“Travel Safe”  also highlights the abstraction and symbolism of borders through the use of backpacks the colour of life vests. Each backpack contains an artifact from a refugee forced to flee their homeland, and bears stitching of Alan’s heart-wrenching last words: “Daddy, please don’t die.”

May it act as a bulwark against the calcification of our communal heart, and allow us to reckon with the realities of our global village.

"No one puts their children in a boat / unless the water is safer than the land” - Warsan Shire, "Home".