NYAREETA: ARTIST AND POET

Nyareeta Gach has also been part of 100 Journeys for the last year, she was born in Maiwut, Sudan and now lives in New York. She is an ambitious artist, poet and aspiring gallerist who exhibits and develops her practice in the city. Her journey as a refugee began during Sudan’s nation’s Second Civil War, and at only 9-months-old, Nyareeta and her immediate family members fled their war-torn nation to seek sanctuary in Ethiopia.

‘The refugee crisis means to me a population of people that are neglected, who feel like they have lost a sense of worth of identity some who may not know what tomor-row holds for them. It’s sacrifice, it’s an ability of holding hope within yourself for the sake of your family, it’s finding a piece of home again.’

In later years they found asylum in the Hagadera Refugee camp in the town of Dadaab, Kenya, where Nyareeta spent most of her childhood. In 2001, Nyareeta and her family immigrated to the United States where she grew up in central Minnesota. Moving to New York was a natural decision for the young artist and she continues to flourish within the city’s creative communities.

‘We all deserve to have a sense of peace and a sense of comfort and not live in trauma or a constant state of survival. We are all human beings - I work with you, I go to school with you, I commute with you - and you may not know I’m a refugee because I’ve assimilated, but I am. That’s my story and my background but it does not define me, there is so much more to all of us.’