’Healing through the arts’: Kim presents refugee project

Violinists Ariana Kim and Amie Weiss and bassist Nicola Barbieri perform in July 2016 in Brescia, Italy, next to a mural created by refugees for Kim's project 'Le storie di vita nel legno.' Violinist and assistant professor of music Ariana Kim found inspiration last year among a group of refugees and asylum-seekers in Italy for 'Le storie di vita nel legno' ('The Stories of Life on Wood'). Combining music, visual art and architecture, the project's U.S. premiere is April 29 at 7 p.m. in Klarman Hall. The free public presentation features a mural created by refugees and displayed in the atrium. A 45-minute documentary about the project by Italian filmmakers Paolo Piubeni and Simone Mosca will screen in Rhodes-Rawlings Auditorium, followed by Kim, guest violinist Susan Waterbury and cellist Elizabeth Lyon performing trios by Cornell doctoral composer Can Bilir. For the refugee participants in Italy, Kim said the collaborative humanitarian project represented 'a new life, and healing through the arts.' She had a grant to develop a large-scale project on the theme of empathy for the 2016-17 Cornell Council for the Arts Biennial, and was on academic leave in Italy and thinking of having her project address immigration and the European migrant crisis. 'The more I read, see and hear about..