FRANCE
Arts based psychosocial programmes in northern France
CALAIS & DUNKIRK.
2015-PRESENT
Summer 2015, on the recommendation of art therapist Naomi Press, Médecins du Monde invited Art Refuge to collaborate with their medical team in Calais’ large refugee camp, The Jungle. Our team travelled weekly from the UK, offering arts-based psychological support to those awaiting medical attention, until the camp closed in October 2016. During this period, we also worked with Médecins Sans Frontières alongside their medical service.
​
Art Refuge was unique in its offer of psychological support to all individuals, irrespective of ethnicity, race, culture, sexuality, gender, or age. The majority of those arriving at the France-UK border in Calais were male, and our work primarily supported unaccompanied young refugees and adult men, with a smaller number of women and families also taking part. Around 70 individuals participated in our fortnightly arts-based groups – our activities encompassing a wide range of creative media, including maps, kites, cyanotype, photography, film, stop-frame animation, building materials, plasticine, and manual typewriters, all tailored to context.
​
Following the camp’s closure, we continued to deliver consistent support in the Calais area, operating fortnightly in a range of locations - alongside Médecins du Monde’s mobile clinic, in the Secours Catholique’s day centre and Maria Skobtsova safe house - until the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the first UK lockdown in March 2020. From here, our services moved to online support from the UK, through which we worked with colleagues from across the Channel to provide safe, creative spaces for staff, volunteers and people using the services, as well as curating our online visual platform for daily rituals Coronaquilt.
​
From October 2020, we returned to face-to-face delivery, and have continued to travel to northern France on at least a monthly basis to work alongside our partners. Notably, our research-based model of practice The Community Table originated in Secours Catholique’s day centre and the Maria Skobtsova safe house, and has further been adapted for other settings across the charity’s work.
PARIS.
ART REFUGE CANOPY
Having had a presence in Paris since 2019, Art Refuge Canopy was launched in November 2025 as a new Paris-based association, sharing the ethos, tools and thinking of Art Refuge, while being able to access local funding. For our Paris history and information for Art Refuge Canopy, click here.
COLLABORATIONS.
Art Refuge has maintained a collaborative relationship with Médecins du Monde (MdM) in Calais, Dunkirk and Paris, underpinned by a formal service agreement. Our team accompanies MdM’s mobile clinic in various roadside settings. Since 2023, our activities have been based out of a psychosocial activities van in Dunkirk, operated by MdM in distribution areas on the outskirts of town. This van, which supports people waiting for medical care, has prompted us to develop new ways of working and to innovate alongside our medical colleagues in these challenging environments.
Across our work, we actively seek out partners in the local context to help us all build positive connections between people seeking asylum and people in local communities, finding creative ways to come together. Our direct work in northern France has been carried out in close collaboration with Médecins du Monde and Secours Catholique. Our trauma-informed services are delivered by a skilled freelance team of HCPC registered art therapists and artists, most of whom have refugee backgrounds and who are integral to the success of our programmes. Working in close partnership with large French non-governmental organisations has provided robust infrastructure, maximising our flexibility and responsiveness in the local context.
WIDER IMPACT.
Over the course of our ten-year programme in northern France, we have honed specialist skills, including providing Training to other organisations working locally. With each visit to both Calais and Dunkirk since 2015 we have written an accompanying Blog post, to process and document the work and share it with a growing audience on Instagram, Facebook and our website Blog.
We have also shared numerous posts from Paris. Many of the thousands of people who have sat at The Community Table follow us on social media, while some have found their way to our physical tables in the UK where we continue to offer creative, adaptable, and culturally sensitive approaches.