Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts will host The Immigrant Story, Multimedia Presentations of Stories of Survival, in a series of events focused on genocide survivors who have rebuilt lives in Oregon. 

The beginning of this presentation will be on Monday, Jan. 27, with the opening of OSU’s Humanities Initiatives’ new multimedia exhibition titled “I Lived to Tell the World”. The exhibition will be in the Toomey Lobby at PRAx until March 1. 

Also on Jan. 27, at 5:30 p.m. in the Toomey Lobby Gallery, PRAx will host a gallery opening and a panel discussion. According to event coordinators, the goal of this panel will be to challenge traditional textbook histories and offer a deeper perspective on genocide and war.

Attendance at the gallery and panel are both free to students and the public. 

With this goal in mind, the panel will feature Katherine Hubler, OSU historian and editor of Listening to Survivors, Saron Khut, genocide survivor and speaker, and Elizabeth Mehren, author of I Lived to Tell the World.

Following the opening of the exhibit on Monday, the Immigrant Story will proudly present the acclaimed live storytelling event “I Lived to Tell the World Live” on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, from 7 to 9:30 p.m., also located in PRAx. 

Tickets to the live show are 20 dollars for the public and five dollars for OSU students, and anyone can purchase them here.

The live performance will “present four men and women sharing their compelling first-person accounts of courage, resilience, and fortitude. Their stories, also featured in our recently released book, I Lived to Tell the World, highlight the strength of the human spirit and the enduring importance of hope”, says the press release from the founder of The Immigrant Story, Sankar Raman. 

The show begins with four moving stories from survivors hailing from Syria, Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia. After a brief intermission, the evening will continue with a vocal performance by Shivani Joshi, who will present traditional songs from South Asia.

Joined by an ensemble of eight talented musicians, Raman, and other organizers expect “Joshi’s performance to offer a breathtaking fusion of Sufi sounds and Western harmonies”, and “together [with the ensemble], they promise an unforgettable musical experience.”

The event and the live performance “seek to remind us—through stories and music—that the resilience of the human spirit and the power of empathy are our greatest tools for healing”, Raman said. 

Rama Yousef, one of the four featured storytellers at the event and a child survivor of the Syrian war said, “By sharing my story, I hope to put a human face on the realities of war, displacement, and survival. These issues are often reduced to statistics, but behind every number is a life, a family, and a unique struggle.”

The event will kick off on Monday of the last week of January and go into March, and more information on the live show can be found here.