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Outlook: The artist who started out drawing war as a child refugee

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Petrit Halilaj and Dr Giacomo Poli, 1999 hold up drawings

10/02/2022 GMT

The artist who started out drawing war as a child refugee

BBC World Service - Outlook, The artist who started out drawing war as a child refugee

Petrit Halilaj was just 13 years old when his drawings were beamed all over the world

Kosovan Petrit Halilaj had no idea that the drawings he did as a child in a refugee camp in Albania would be seen all around the world and would lead to a meeting with Kofi Annan.

Petrit Halilaj was born in Kosovo in 1986 and grew up in the small town of Runik. He always loved drawing and had a rare talent for it. When war broke out in Kosovo and Serbian troops moved into their hometown, Petrit and his family had to flee, eventually finding sanctuary in a refugee camp in Albania. It was there, in 1999, that Petrit met the Italian psychologist Giacomo 'Angelo' Poli who encouraged the children to communicate the traumas they had experienced, through drawing. Using only felt tip pens, Petrit's drawings ended up being beamed all over the world. They even caught the attention of the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who asked to meet Petrit during a visit to the camp. Many years on, Petrit is now a highly acclaimed artist. He recently exhibited work based on some of the drawings from the refugee camp, at Tate St Ives in Cornwall in the South West of England. The show is called Very volcanic over this green feather.

The Winter Olympics of 1984 were hosted by Sarajevo in what was then Yugoslavia. A centrepiece of the Games was a state of the art luge, bob-sledding and skeleton track on the icy slopes of Mount Trebević. But just a few years after those Olympics, Yugoslavia broke up and Sarajevo became a war zone. The Olympic track was used as a trench and damaged by guns and explosives and was left in ruins... that was until a Sarajevo man called Senad Omanovic resolved to try to restore it to its former glory. Senad spoke to Outlook in December 2016. 

Larry Ridge has always been fascinated by carousels - those enchanting merry-go-rounds you often find in fairgrounds where you sit on a carved figure - usually a horse - and watch the world go by. Larry specialises in carving these figures, in fact he runs the only full-time school in America that teaches people how to do it. For Outlook, Kathy Karlo stopped by to see him in Chattanooga in Tennessee.

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com

Presenter: Jo Fidgen

(Photo: Petrit Halilaj and Dr Giacomo Poli, 1999. Credit:  Giacomo Poli)

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