Remapping Europe at the 16th ZEMOS98 Festival in Seville
Professor Daniela Berghahn and Dr Sarita Malik were invited by the European Cultural Foundation to contribute to the 16th ZEMOS 98 Festival in Seville (8-12 April 2014). This year’s Festival theme was Remapping Europe and the focus was on the (self-)representation of migrants in the media and their memories in transit.
The encounter brought together artists, social activists, journalists and academics who, in a series of creative performances, working sessions and public conversations, explored three themes. The first day of the encounter was devoted to Hacking the Veil through challenging dominant media representations of immigrants. The second day, entitled The Domestic is Political, focused on female migrant domestic workers and caregivers, whose significant contribution to European society and economy is notoriously undervalued and underpaid. On the third day, participants of the ZEMOS98 encounter sought to create Autonomous Imageries that emphasised the positive contributions migrants make to contemporary European societies.
The ZEMOS98 Festival provided the ideal platform for the launch of a combined book and DVD publication that was initiated by Vivian Paulissen of the European Cultural Foundation, in collaboration with the British Film Institute and Mode Istanbul. Remixing Europe – A Remix Project is the culmination of the work Doc Next Network in which video artists and filmmakers deconstruct dominant images of migrants in European media by remixing them. For more information about how to order the publications Remixing Europe: Migrants Media Representation Imagery (which includes essays by Daniela Berghahn and Sarita Malik) and Remapping Europe: Films & Performances, go to the Doc Next Network website, where you can also find out more about their work.
Since the Encounter Remapping Europe in Seville not only sought to ‘hack the veil’ but also ‘to hack’ conventional modes of academic discourse and collaboration, Daniela Berghahn and Sarita Malik had the opportunity to experience innovative research methodologies that harnessed the powers of collective intelligence, drawing on the creative and critical resources of a diverse group of contributors from all over Europe. Instead of presenting academic papers, Daniela and Sarita acted as oral tellers and text tellers, communicating the findings of the collaborative working sessions to the general public. You can read Sarita’s report on ‘Hacking the Veil’ here and watch Daniela acting as an oral teller here.
Posted by Daniela Berghahn on 29 Apr 2014 •