New Mappings of Europe

New Mappings of Europe

Project Leader: Moderna Galerija SI
Akademie der Bildenden Kunste Wien AT
Muzej Jugoslavije RS
Teesside University UK
Maximum Grant Awarded: 200.000,00 €

New Mappings of Europe is a two-year collaborative project of four different art and cultural institutions from Serbia, Slovenia, Austria and the United Kingdom, which will generate knowledge about the migrants’ cultural heritage in Europe and make cultural and art institutions more accessible to local communities of migrants of the first and second generations as well as to the new communities of asylum seekers and refugees. The project will consist of co-curated exhibitions, accompanied by a rich public mediation programme, artist residencies, a common web platform, and an international conference. The aim of the project is twofold: on the one hand to deal with past phenomena related to migrations, and on the other, to link these phenomena to current migrations. In order to do so successfully, it is necessary to collaborate on a transnational level.

The questions that the project departs from are: What are the common experiences that might link these seemingly different migrants? And how did mass arrivals of people from various parts of the world change not only the way we perceive Europe but also the way Europe is perceived from the outside? With a focused attention to the forms of progressive imagination we would like to offer some answers to those questions. The questions are especially relevant in our contemporary situation when new migrants, asylum seekers and refugees are arriving from all parts of the world due to social, political and economic reasons as well as climate changes. Europe has always been faced with the challenge of including migrants in society. These processes are usually long and complex. An important dimension of inclusion is through culture and through attaching positive social values to migrants’ cultural heritage.