We’re thrilled to unveil the poster for Refugee Festival Scotland 2026! The design, which features six striking portraits, was created by oil-painter Nii Sackey Vanderpuye and Graphic Designer Anupa Joshy.

We caught up with them to find out more about the inspiration behind their work.  

Why did you want to design the artwork for Refugee Festival Scotland 2026? 

Nii Sackey: The brief immediately felt like an invitation to say something honest and human. 

Anupa: We wanted to communicate feelings of hope, celebration and migration in a way that was layered and multifaceted, while remaining sensitive to the subject. 

We’re living in harder times, so the key message of hope had to be abundant in the visual. The topic of migration and why it happens in a broader sense became pivotal to the concept. 

Your poster focusses on the concept that migration has always been part of Scotland’s story. Can you tell us more about this? 

Anupa:  Scotland has been welcoming refugees for a very long time. It’s not something new. We’ve had refugees from Chile and Iran in the 1970s and 80s, from Pakistan in the 2010s, and more recently from Ukraine, Afghanistan and Sudan.  

People are people, and Scotland has always been open to people. We wanted the poster to make that argument not through anger, but through joy. Six portraits, six cultures, six different eras. All of them belonging here. 

Nii Sackey: That instinct to move, to seek better conditions, greater safety, new possibility, is not something humans invented. It is ancient and shared. Animals migrate instinctively, following seasons, resources, and safety along routes worn into the natural world long before any border existed. Humans carry that same instinct.

Bringing those two things together in the work felt like a way of grounding the conversation in something primal and undeniable, a reminder that at its core, movement is not a crisis. It is simply what living things do to thrive.

Anupa: We incorporated animals, birds and insects that migrate to, from and within Scotland. Puffins nest in the isles during summer and spend the rest of the year migrating as far as Greenland or the Mediterranean.

Ospreys travel to the Highlands from West Africa every spring. Whooper Swans arrive from Iceland in autumn. Red Admiral Butterflies reach Scotland all the way from North Africa and Europe. Each animal was chosen to belong to the portrait it accompanies, not as a symbol placed beside a person, but as a presence that feels genuinely part of them. 

Can you tell us a bit about your process for creating the portraits that feature on this year’s poster?

Nii Sackey: These pieces are meant to evoke celebration and joy, so the concepts colours, composition, expressions, were all selected based on one simple criterion – is it joyful? 

With portraiture especially, there’s a moment where a painting either comes alive or it doesn’t, and I’m always chasing that. The goal is always for the viewer to feel like they’re in the company of a real person with a worthwhile story to tell. I wanted each subject to feel fully realised, and representative of the migrant experience. 

For instance, the Ukrainian grannie, and the three generations of Syrian men, the Chilean toddler, the Afghan man, the Sudanese girls and, Pakistani girl these are people at all stages of life who have migrated to Scotland and have become a part of Scottish society.

I also wanted to avoid any sense of vulnerability or victimhood – these are not people to be pitied; they are our neighbours, business owners, friends, nurses, doctors, schoolmates – they’re a part of our massive ever-growing Scottish community. 

What was it like for a graphic designer to work so closely with an oil painter and how did this shape the final design? 

Anupa: This was something new and genuinely exciting for me. Knowing how wonderful an artist Nii Sackey is, I wanted his paintings to be the centrepiece of the work and for the graphic design to elevate rather than compete with them.  

We co-ordinated at every step, making sure we were both happy with how the work evolved. The tile-based design system helped make the poster and all festival materials versatile with six portraits celebrating six different cultures, the colours and combinations feel unique and alive.  

What we arrived at is a multi-layered, rich tapestry addressing themes of hope, migration, celebration, belonging and nature. 

Your poster will soon be on display in locations across Scotland. What impact would you like it to have on the people that see it?

Nii Sackey: For people with their own experience of moving, I hope there’s a moment of recognition, a sense that their story is being honoured publicly. I hope they feel seen.  

And for everyone else, I hope there’s an opening up of curiosity and empathy. I hope they feel something shift, even slightly, in how they think about migration and belonging. 

Anupa: Times are harder than they used to be and hatred feels louder than ever. I want the work to bring hope to people, that despite everything, communities resist and grow. It is so important, now more than ever, to acknowledge this and celebrate it.  

The work is intentionally colourful and shows people from different cultures, different ages, different generations, smiling and alive. It’s a genuine cross-section of humanity rather than a checklist and I hope that comes through. 

This year’s festival runs from 12-21 June. Over 10 days, hundreds of events will take place across the country. The full line-up will be available from mid-May.