British-Somali journalist and author Ismail Einashe will present a lecture as part of the Department of Visual Arts and New Media’s Visiting Artist Program.
An award-winning journalist and author will present a lecture at SUNY Fredonia on Friday, Oct. 2.
Ismail Einashe, a British-Somali journalist and author, will speak at 4 p.m. in McEwen Hall Room 209 as part of the Department of Visual Arts and New Media’s Visiting Artist Program.
Mr. Einashe will speak about his work as a global journalist focusing on migration and refugee issues, and the power of art to change the narrative around forced migration.
The lecture is free and open to the public. It is presented in conjunction with the current exhibition in the Cathy and Jesse Marion Art Gallery — “for nothing is fixed: Susanne Slavick and Andrew Ellis Johnson.”
Einashe’s most recent essay, titled “A Wound and a Map,” is included in the exhibition catalog, which will be available in mid-October free of charge in the Marion Art Gallery or by request.
In the essay, Einashe relates his own experience as a war refugee to Slavick and Johnson’s drawings, paintings, and archival prints about refugee and immigration issues in the United States.
Einashe and his family were forced to leave their home in Hargeisa, Somalia in 1988 when he was only 5 years old due to the escalating violence and persecution during the Somali Civil War. They first escaped on foot to a refugee camp in Ethiopia near the border town of Hartisheik, where Einashe spent the defining years of his childhood. The family arrived in London a few days before Christmas 1994.
Einashe’s articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Foreign Policy, The Guardian, BBC News, The Nation, The Sunday Times and ArtReview. He is the author of “Strangers” (2023), a book by Tate Publishing that explores migration through the lens of art, and he co-edited “Lost in Media: Migrant Perspectives and the Public Sphere” (2019), a collection of critical essays examining how migrants are represented in European media. He has won several awards for his work, including a 2019 Migration Media Award and the 2021 Investigative Journalism for Europe Impact Award. In 2020 he was a finalist for the European Press Prize.
Ismail was a 2025–26 Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, where he researched how art can change the narrative around forced migration. He is also a member of the editorial board of Tate Etc., the magazine of the Tate Galleries. Currently, Einashe is part of a team of journalists working on a cross-border journalism collaborative called Lost in Europe, which investigates the disappearance of child migrants.
In addition to the Department of Visual Arts and New Media, Einashe’s lecture is supported by the Cathy and Jesse Marion Art Gallery.
The exhibition “for nothing is fixed” is on display through Nov. 20. It is supported by the Cathy and Jesse Marion Art Gallery Endowment Fund established through the Fredonia College Foundation, as well as Friends of Rockefeller Arts Center.
Gallery hours are Tuesday through Thursday from noon to 4 p.m., Friday and Saturday from noon to 6 p.m., Sunday from noon to 4 p.m., and by appointment. To learn more about the exhibition, schedule a group tour or request an exhibition catalog, contact Gallery Director Barbara Räcker via email at barbara.racker@fredonia.edu or call (716) 673.4897.
