EAST LANSING, MICH.- The Eli and Edyth Broad Art Museum MSU has announced an initiative of special programming extending artist Sam Jury’s current exhibition To Be Here beyond the museum walls. "Bridging the museum with the community" in the words of new Director Marc-Olivier Wahler. Broad/MSU seeks to extend the impact of the exhibition on the critical issue of the global refugee crisis beyond the stunning Zaha Hadid-designed museum, across Michigan State’s campus, and into the community at large.

Programming will include additional filmic material from Jury’s Artifariti-sponsored artist residency in Boujdur refugee camp in the Western Sahara exploring the prolonged displacement endured by Sahrawi refugees. To Be Here brings attention to one of the longest running refugee crises in the modern world. In the words of Broad MSU's assistant curator Steven L. Bridges curator of the exhibition: “To Be Here humanizes the global refugee crisis and brings attention to the daily realities of such situations .This exhibition demonstrates the Broad MSU’s commitment to using art as a tool to explore international issues that connect us to both global and Greater Lansing communities, the latter of which is a supportive center for refugee resettlement.”

Sam Jury has traveled from her home base in the UK to participate this September in artist talks, engage in film studies classes, an Eye on Africa Seminar a podcast, Red Cross event as well as community programming

The never before seen additional footage To Be Here (without) will be presented in interventions around the campus and community and will reflect the university’s involvement in the One Book, One Community program. The new material entitled To Be Here (without) is a short video inspired by conversations with Sahrawi women and framed by excerpts from Ben Rawlence's searing book, City of Thorns the subject of the One Book One Community program. Sam Jury and Ben Rawlence will participate in a Q+A together at the East Lansing Public Library.

To Be Here conjures complex issues of individual and collective identity, forced migration and exile and the often overlooked female experience of conflict.

Sam Jury is a recipient of the Perlmutter Award and residency from the Rose Art Museum, USA, which culminated in the solo show Coerced Nature. Recent shows include Projected Images at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest, Hungary; Moving Time: Video Art at 50, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China; and the solo installation All Things Being Equal, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland. Sam Jury is represented by Stephen Haller Gallery of New York. To Be Here continues at Broad/MSU until November 27th.