International migrants day 2018
There is Beauty in this Journey launched at the Star & Shadow in Newcastle on the 18th December, the annual date of the United Nations Observance of International Migrants Day.
In response to the themes of There is Beauty in this Journey, the launch was a curated platform that gave stage to artists’ voices and commissioned work and, most importantly, offered an opportunity for individuals and community groups to voice their own lived experiences, heritage and positive collective action in our region through spoken word and music.
The launch served to open up dialogue on the ground and act as a responsive community gathering where personal reflections and current realities of migration were centre stage. From an open call, members of our city community voiced a wide range of personal and political issues of migration from a personal redressing of intergenerational migratory heritage prompted by the 2016 referendum; to stories of asylum journeys, trauma, displacement and integration; and the movement working towards continued study rights in the UK for asylum seekers.
Spoken word experiences were intersected by a screening of excerpts from We Shall Overswim, a D6 commission from 2008 by the artist Borjana Ventzislavova. Underpinning this work were questions asking - Can European identity be defined? What parameters and elements dictate our understandings of ‘European identity’? These are questions that have taken on a renewed meaning in the current political climate. These were questions that were contextualised and poetically addressed by artist Henna Asikainen on stage, through a reflection of her most recently commissioned work with D6, Forageand Delicate Shuttle.
"The curatorial balance of artist’s work, live music and real testimonies created a powerful discourse about representation, presentation and interpretation of such timely experiences around the lives of migrants."
Special thanks to:
Bethany Elen Coyle/ Borjana Ventzislavova/ Crossings Band/ Henna Asikainen/ MD/ Samantha Lourens/ The Star & Shadow/ The Room of Small Things project
Further information about the United Nations Observance, International Migrants Day can be found here: http://www.un.org/en/events/migrantsday/
#WithDignity
In response to the themes of There is Beauty in this Journey, the launch was a curated platform that gave stage to artists’ voices and commissioned work and, most importantly, offered an opportunity for individuals and community groups to voice their own lived experiences, heritage and positive collective action in our region through spoken word and music.
The launch served to open up dialogue on the ground and act as a responsive community gathering where personal reflections and current realities of migration were centre stage. From an open call, members of our city community voiced a wide range of personal and political issues of migration from a personal redressing of intergenerational migratory heritage prompted by the 2016 referendum; to stories of asylum journeys, trauma, displacement and integration; and the movement working towards continued study rights in the UK for asylum seekers.
Spoken word experiences were intersected by a screening of excerpts from We Shall Overswim, a D6 commission from 2008 by the artist Borjana Ventzislavova. Underpinning this work were questions asking - Can European identity be defined? What parameters and elements dictate our understandings of ‘European identity’? These are questions that have taken on a renewed meaning in the current political climate. These were questions that were contextualised and poetically addressed by artist Henna Asikainen on stage, through a reflection of her most recently commissioned work with D6, Forageand Delicate Shuttle.
"The curatorial balance of artist’s work, live music and real testimonies created a powerful discourse about representation, presentation and interpretation of such timely experiences around the lives of migrants."
Special thanks to:
Bethany Elen Coyle/ Borjana Ventzislavova/ Crossings Band/ Henna Asikainen/ MD/ Samantha Lourens/ The Star & Shadow/ The Room of Small Things project
Further information about the United Nations Observance, International Migrants Day can be found here: http://www.un.org/en/events/migrantsday/
#WithDignity
Images: Film Stills, We Shall Overswim, Borjana Ventzislavova and Performances by Crossings Band and MD