Author: Agata Lisiak

IM²MEDIATE is a research project investigating the dynamic interplay between media representations of recent non-EU immigrants in the EU, with specific emphasis on the situation of refugees and the governmental and societal (re)actionsto it. Within this large project funded by Belspo, our study engages with the experiences of refugees. Taking a voice-centered approach, we have worked with 44 participants of Syrian, Afghan, and Iraqi descent, who came to Belgium after 2015. The study included ethnographic conversations, focus group interviews, and visual workshops with photo elicitation and photovoice exercises. These different methods were used to elicit participants’ stories about their journeys and experiences, but also to explore their responses to mainstream visual representations of migration and refugees. Our analysis included an inquiry into negotiations of victimization in everyday life contexts, the meanings and difficulties of visual representations of suffering, and critiques of the Western gaze in media representations of migration. During a part of our study, we presented participants with a representative sample of mainstream representations of refugees and asked them to “give voice” to one or more of the persons being depicted. Some participants used this exercise to problematize the way in which refugees are portrayed and used this opportunity to address “all Belgians” or politicians. The images thus functioned as a helpful springboard to address broader issues related to migration, politics, and culture.

Researchers: Kevin Smets (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Jacinthe Mazzocchetti (Université catholique de Louvain), Lorraine Gerstmans (Université catholique de Louvain), Lien Mostmans (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Leen d’Haenens (KU Leuven)

The subjective realities of migrants are at the centre of Maggie O’Neill’s approach which is articulated through the practice of walking. As part of her Leverhulme Research Fellowship with a specific focus on borders, risk and belonging, the project aims to explore migrants’ journeys, mapping out their pathways to becoming long-term residents of the area. In this project, walking is a platform for sensing the surrounding environment and being in touch with personal emotions and memories. The performative act of walking in space and time is relational and plays a role in the definition of belonging to a place, which is particularly important in the definition of migrants’ identities. Walking is a useful methodology when studying borders, risk, and belonging, as it can involve physically crossing borders, going into areas perceived as ‘risky,’ or, literally walking on a border. The project makes use of participatory action research (PAR) and arts practice (ethno-mimesis) when investigating the sense of belonging negotiated by migrants. Arts practice can include performance and public displays such as maps, whilst ethno-mimesis focuses on imitating the representations of the reality of migrants. The intention of the research is to produce a web resource including maps from the walks, images and sound files.

Researcher: Maggie O’Neill (University of York)

Migrant Child Storytelling acknowledge that every child has a story to tell. Supported by the Rights and Opportunities Foundation, Migrant Child Storytelling gather and share stories submitted by migrant children from all around the world, whether in the form of pictures, photographs, video or text. It is a platform through which the child’s voice, too often ignored, can be heard, and the child’s vision of their world can be seen. The term ‘migrant’ is deliberately used in order to refer to all children who have been forced, or have chosen, to leave their home country for any reason, and who are trying to establish a life in another country. Anyone who is under the age of eighteen is welcome to submit material. If you are working with children under eighteen please encourage them to make use of this site. Guidelines for how to run a workshop with young people to gather materials is available here. The materials must be collected following UNICEF guidelines and with the consent of the child’s parents/caretakers if they are under 16.

Artists at Risk is a platform offering Safe Haven Residencies to artists, curators, and critics who are persecuted and threatened for political reasons. The platform provides art practitioners safe exit and travel from their countries of origin into the residencies, as well as legal assistance. AR develops cooperation-programmes with artist-in-residency centres, art/film/theatre unions, cities and human-rights networks which help provide artists at risk a safe place of temporary relocation. The platform was initiated by the curatorial vehicle Perpetuum Mobile who also create and curate events, conferences, and the “AR Pavilion” in Europe and internationally.  

MAKE ART NOT WALLS is a platform through which West African asylum seekers translate their experiences into works of visual art. Founded in 2016 by the artist Virginia Ryan, the organization provides an open studio to newcomers in the small town of Trevi in Italy. The art tools consist of recycled materials and items donated by shops and businesses. Through making art, the asylum seekers are provided with an occupation which facilitates coping with traumas in a therapeutic manner and at the same time allows them to introduce their stories to the community of Trevi. In their last exhibition in Rose Gallery in Los Angeles (in conjunction with Human Rights Watch), MAKE ART NOT WALLS featured a series of sequential, vividly rendered tableaux, in which each artist tells their story of leaving their home country. Although each story is uniquely expressed, certain visual themes that emerge from the collection reveal the commonality of refugees’ experiences: groups of figures huddled shoulder-to-shoulder in overcapacity boats and trucks; sleeping on floors; hiding in trucks; saying goodbye. The works are soon to be housed in the new Casa della Cultura in Trevi.

The Verbatim Formula is a participatory performance-based research project which works with young people in the social care system including a high proportion of refugee children, unaccompanied minor, and young asylum-seeking migrants. This project is carried out in partnership with the Greater London Authority Peer Outreach Team, and has been primarily created by Maggie Inchley, Sylvan Baker, and Sadhvi Dar, in collaboration with Mita Pujara (Artist/Evaluator) and is produced by People’s Palace Projects. Using an earpiece, performers relay the exact words of a previously conducted interview to the audience. In this portable testimony service, listening is made visible through a performance illustrating sections of interviews which have been edited together into an audio file. These performances help people to listen, create open and meaningful dialogue, as well as share and take action. The Verbatim Formula allows participants to be co-researchers on the project and places their voices at the centre of the research; the young people ask the questions, gather data by interviewing, and disseminate the findings through performance.This research aims to create an environment where a diverse number of children and young people can express themselves freely and anonymously, giving those working in social care an insight into the lived experiences of the system, the concerns children may have, and their overall livelihood in the care system. This participatory project illustrates the different experiences of migrant children in social care, as well as ethnic and gender differences where worldviews of participants are examined, then shared through drama performance. Drama allows for a diverse interpretation of life in social care from individuals who experience the system in diverse ways.

Researchers: Maggie Inchley (Queen Mary, University of London), Sylvan Baker (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London), and Sadhvi Dar (Queen Mary, University of London), in collaboration with Mita Pujara (Artist/Evaluator)

The Holot Theater is a theatre group of asylum seekers and Israelis who came together in order to present the many problems caused by the policies regarding refugees and asylum seekers in Israel. Inspired by Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed, the Holot Theater has been exploring various techniques, exercises, and improvisations in order to address and process asylum seekers’ personal and social problems in Israel. Founded at the Holot Detention Camp in 2015, the theater group provides a democratic framework whereby legal issues can be critically examined and discussed with the audience who is invited to actively imagine the possibility of policy and legal change toward asylum seekers in Israel. During the performance, which is based on the participants’ personal testimonies, the group offers new readings of the Refugee Convention with the intention to inspire public discussion and social transformation.

Migration Trail is an audio-visual project that uses maps and data visualisation in order to retrace the journeys of people travelling from Turkey and North Africa to Europe in search for a better life.  The journeys can be followed in real time and include the fictional characters’ thoughts, which can be sent as messages (written by Elnathan John and Nadia Asfour) to one’s phone, viewed on the website, or listened to on the project’s podcast.  Migration Trail started in 2014 in reaction to little attention the issue of migration to Europe had been getting in the media.  The real-time story-telling project was officially launched in 2017 as a way to address and convey the urgency and immediacy that the issue demanded, but lacked.

Writing in Migration is an African book festival starting in Berlin tomorrow, April 26. Curated by Olumide Popoola and organized by InterKontinental, the three-day fest will feature spoken word performances, a play, readings, and discussions with immensely talented and inspiring authors. Check out the lineup here and see the program for more details.

Atlas of Transitions – New Geographies for a Cross-Cultural Europe is one of the 15 large-scale projects of the 2017 Creative Europe programme (2017-2020). It promotes cross-cultural dialogue between European citizens and newcomers – migrants, refugees, asylum seekers – by bringing local communities closer together through culture and performing arts. The project looks at the potentialities arising from the contemporary migration phenomenon and seeks new ways of experiencing public space and cohabitation through art. Its aim is to counter radicalism and anxiety towards migration within society by developing strategies of co-creation and interaction between citizens and migrants, with the participation of people with diverse cultural backgrounds in traditional as well as non-conventional public spaces such as squares, neighbourhoods, and suburbs. To achieve this result, Atlas of Transitions promotes workshops, creative productions, festivals and academic research, thanks to the collaborations of cultural institutions and universities in seven European countries: Italy, Albania, Belgium, Poland, France, Greece, and Sweden. Together with national and local theatres and associations and artists from Europe and abroad, Atlas of Transitions supports academic research to promote strategies of emancipation and participatory knowledge and practice by involving universities and scholars from its seven partner countries. Researchers’ findings will be disseminated on our website in the Action Research section, where they can be downloaded without restrictions. To boost the practical knowledge that academic research will put together during this three-year project, in the last semester of Atlas of Transitions, a Summer School will host and provide training opportunities for scholars, social workers, and artists who perform in cross-cultural and migration-related contexts. Here, artists’ knowledge and experience will be shared and creative forms of active participation for social cohesion will be practiced together to teach and disseminate their potentialities in daily work and life.