From 7–14 May, the University of Bath community is invited to experience a powerful new exhibition showcasing photographs of “home”, created by students from the University’s refugee student population. Curated and supported by Student Support and Safeguarding, the exhibition offers an intimate and moving reflection on belonging, memory, safety, and hope.
For many students with refugee backgrounds, the idea of home is complex, shaped by displacement, separation, resilience, and rebuilding. Through personal images, the exhibition captures spaces, objects, landscapes, and moments that hold meaning.
The Bread of Bitterness
These are not pastries; they are monuments to survival.
To a stranger’s eye, they look like golden biscuits, but to a father’s heart, they are the scars of a famine. I kneaded this dough with trembling hands, using the coarse grain meant for animals.
Every bite was a struggle, a physical rejection of a taste that was never meant for human tongues. Yet, I watched my children eat.
Why did I do this? I fed them this bitterness so they would understand the sanctity of the soil. I wanted them to feel, in their very bones, that our land is not just dirt, it is our lifeblood. It is a treasure so precious that we will endure the unthinkable to keep our claim upon it.
We swallowed our pride and our hunger, teaching our souls that while the bread may be foul, our resolve is unbreakable. We sacrifice for the land today, so that tomorrow, it may feed us with dignity once more.
Ashraf Kuhail, Gaza
PhD Research in Education
The photographs invite viewers to pause and reflect on what “home” truly means.
Nic Streatfield, Director of Student Support and Safeguarding, emphasised the importance of creating space for these stories to be shared:
This exhibition is about listening to our students’ experiences. For those who have been forced to leave their homes, the journey to feeling settled again can be long and complex, which is why the Student Retention and Success Team plays such a vital role in supporting students to feel safe, supported, and rebuild a sense of belonging.
The exhibition also reflects the University’s ongoing commitment to its Sanctuary work and to supporting students affected by conflict and displacement. Manuel Barcia, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Global Engagement) and Chair of the Sanctuary Committee, highlighted the significance of the exhibition for the wider University community:
Our refugee students bring extraordinary strength, perspective, and humanity to the University of Bath. This exhibition allows their voices to be centred, not through statistics or policies, but through creativity and lived experience. It is a moving testament to what sanctuary can mean in practice.
Visitors will find the images moving and powerful, offering personal reflections on what home has meant to these students, places left behind, memories carried forward, and the everyday details that continue to hold meaning. Together, the photographs form a visual narrative of home as something remembered, re imagined, and held close, even across distance and displacement.
All staff and students are warmly encouraged to visit the exhibition between 7 and 14 May, to engage with the images, reflect on their own understandings of home, and stand in solidarity with students who have rebuilt their lives through education and community at Bath.