Maplewood Arts & Cultures Presents:
Reflecting Refuge

This exhibit features the works of contemporary NJ-based artist Christine Sauerteig-Pilaar. The tent pictured in the graphic is the first in her series of refugee tents fabricated using unconventional materials as metaphors. For this new installation, the shelter will be constructed from reflective Mylar—a fragile material mirroring the precarious boundaries refugees depend on for survival. Embodied in this exhibit are stunning gouaches of refugees.

Make sure you read about the Call For Community Participation and the Call To High School Students following Christine’s statement so that you can be a part of this timely and meaningful installation. High School Student Sign-Up Form.

Christine Sauerteig-Pilaar’s Statement on Reflecting Refuge
”Reflecting Refuge is the culmination of ideas that first took shape several years ago, when I began learning more deeply about the plight of refugees in our global community. It began in 2015 when the civil war in Syria started to seep into my small media bubble. At the time, as a Mom of two young children, the horrors of the refugee families were heart-wrenching. I began painting gouaches of the refugees and how the media portrayed them.

Fast forward to today: the media avalanche has only intensified, and the number of displaced people has grown exponentially. Those early works from ten years ago could still hang on these walls as if they were taken from the news just hours ago.

My work has always been about pulling issues from the shadows, issues that many would rather we not extend our attention to. With this project, my hope is to create a piece that can only come to life through the energy and input of the community. By inviting participants to contribute pieces to be sewn into the work, we create a collective act of solidarity and love: a shelter woven over a fragile reflective tent, fully aware that the tent exists both directly and indirectly because of all of us.

We are the tent. We are the protection, the cause, and the vulnerability it symbolizes.

My hope is that, together, we build a “hug” suspended over the tent, offering shelter to all who walk beneath it. The paper, materials, and sewing were all acting as metaphors for mending what is broken. We will create, together, a refuge from chaos and hate, and an awakening to the power of one voice joining many, forming a collective rally cry for our most basic love for humanity and for each other”. -Christine Sauerteig-Pilaar

Call for Community Participation:
With this project comes a unique invitation to community members. For the piece to be fully realized, Christine calls for your insight, creativity, and energy.

At the gallery, you’ll find panels of sewing pattern paper. I invite you to trace your hand(s) and then write a word or phrase, or draw a symbol that represents safety, help, identity, or refuge to you. You’re welcome to use any language or any symbols that feel meaningful. Her only request is that you include the traced outline of your hand(s).

Feel free to take the papers home, work on them in your own time and space, and then return them. Once collected, she will sew all of these pieces together to create the screen that will be suspended above the reflective tent.

Be as creative as you like: add materials from home, use your own papers or fabrics, incorporate collage elements, or simply use words if drawing or painting isn’t your thing.

The most important part is that you join in.

When the project is complete, she will invite you to come back and see what you have built together. Know that your voice and your hands are woven into this shared refuge and that you are part of a collective act of care and solidarity.

High School Participation Letter:
A Call to High School Students Seeking a Unique Artistic Experience and Community Service Hours! High School Student Sign-Up Form.

Christine Sauerteig-Pilaar is inviting high school students who are interested in earning community service hours for Honor Society, clubs, or other academic requirements, to join her in creating a life-size refugee tent made of reflective Mylar.

She’d love your help on this one-day build, and in return, she will provide pizza and other treats, plus a signed letter confirming your service hours.

If you’re interested in the arts (whether as an extracurricular passion or a potential career), this is a wonderful opportunity to get hands-on experience and ask her any questions you might have about working as a professional artist.

Installation Date: August 13, 2025 Time: 12 pm – 4 pm Location: 1978 Maplewood Arts Center, 1978 Springfield Ave., Maplewood, NJ.

Please fill out the High School Student Sign-Up Form by August 6th so she can plan accordingly.

Read Artist Bio/Statement Here
Christine Sauerteig-Pilaar Website