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2024-4-3 14:03

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European Alternatives lead *Re-Build Refuge Europe, *a project that brought

together partners from the UK, Sweden, Spain, Finland, Germany, and Greece.

It aimed to counteract the dominant discourses of ‘crisis’ and ‘threat’ by

using art, culture and innovative practices allowing European citizens and

refugees to learn from each other as equals. Activities of the project

included storytelling, training and workshops for participants and the

digital arts. Interim and final results of the project were exhibited and

performed during the Athens Biennale 2017 http://athensbiennale.org/en/

and TRANSEUROPA Festival 2017 https://transeuropafestival.eu/ in Madrid.

The influx of refugees in Europe, mostly from the Middle East and Northern

African countries, is widely interpreted in media and political discourse

as a crisis and a threat. In several national elections the extreme right

and openly xenophobic parties have gained substantive support. Re-build

Refuge Europe’s objective is to counteract this discourse and beliefs. It

builds on creative cultural proposals and offers spaces for processes of

co-creation to be developed, in which refugees and migrants are considered

as a constitutive part of the remaking of European communities.

Actions to support the recent newcomers are mushrooming all over Europe,

often focusing by necessity on aid, social and economic support. We believe

that it is the cultural role and duty of Europe to welcome refugees

properly and to allow for cultural hybridisation to happen. We believe that

only by fully realising the potential of cultural hybridisation and by

being a welcoming and supportive area will Europe build a secure society

for its future, inside and outside its borders.

The project Re-build Refuge Europe provided the space to link up cultural

actors and societal actors mobilised in different corners of Europe to

exchange and build new practices. This project produced innovative

practices that allow European citizens and refugees to work together on

equal footing and learn from each other. It also uses a creative mix of

mediums to raise European citizens’ knowledge of issues at stake for

refugees and in making Europe a place of Refuge where all people can feel

safe.

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Credits photo: *The Remapping Europe’s encounter ‘HOME: Remixing memories

in transit’ Mutantpedia: Autonomous Imageries. Seville Arts Centre during

the ZEMOS98 International Festival. pic by Julio Albarrán*