A REFUGEE invited passers-by to join her for a cup of tea outside York Minster in a bid to discuss her experiences in the name of art.

Refugees Welcome, an installation by artist Alketa Xhafa Mripa, asked visitors to have tea with her in the back of a Luton tail lift van.
Alketa shared her stories of being warmly welcomed as a refugee from Kosovo in 1997 as a starting point for conversations.

Visitors were also invited to share their own stories and write messages in a book.

The van is a symbol of refugees crossing borders and is arranged inside to depict a living room with two chairs and a coffee table set on a Persian rug.
Maggie O'Neill, from the University of York, helped organise the installation with Simon Parker.

She said: "On the same weekend as the Great Get Together celebrating the life of Jo Cox, a strong message from many of those who engaged with Alketa and her work was the importance of compassion, opening a space for dialogue, and that sitting down to tea and conversation helps us to understand, in the words of Jo Cox, that 'we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us'."