Kraye Challenge History

Outside The Margins is the latest installment of The Kraye Challenge, named after the late Professor S. Howard Kraye. Since 2011, The Kraye Challenge has dared artists from around the world to use their art as a medium to express cultural identity, traditions and the pain of displacement from one’s homeland; that is to say, how it feels to be outside the margins.

The Outside The Margins book project rose out of a growing sense of urgency surrounding the Syrian refugee crisis. The project has since transformed from an endeavor to raise awareness about displacement into one creating a broader understanding of the fundamental factors that cause it. The project emphasizes poetics and art as a new paradigm for refugee aid and accompanying programs.

The evolution of the project emanates from both the analysis of the fundamental nodes of global production that shape our world as well as the understanding of the world’s interconnectedness. We use this understanding as a point of orientation to discuss fundamental concepts like modernity and seeing others in a negative way. Importantly, we emphasize the impact of using art as a tool in educational programs for refugee children because of its dynamic capacity to nurture both a person’s expressive faculties and self-determination while still being able to accompany them through the trauma of displacement.