Short project description
This large project, running for 24 months and worth more than 358.000 euros, started on September 1, 2015, and is still in a phase of formulation and articulation. Bordr is very proud to be along and provide methodologies and experiences to this effort that will for a large part define our ways forward. Information will shortly be updated (summer 2016)
The European Union official “project short” goes like this:
Europe Grand Central is a groundbreaking cooperation effort that combines grassroots projects by independent culture organizations across Europe and beyond through a unique digital and conceptual platform to connect audience created narratives about the human act of crossing borders.
Partners of the project, all solid culture operators and networks, work on vastly varied topics such as rising xenophobia towards refugees in Sweden, personal consequences of mounting economic crisis in Greece, disconnected suburbs and city-dwellers in Bologna and Bremen, political tension towards the eastern borderlands of Poland, and skewed notions of the Arab world in Europe. The methods for audience inclusion to challenge sentiments of “us” and “them” vary across interactive theatre and photography, craft, design, workshops, street art, and artistic residencies.
Europe Grand Central is the space for learning across contexts and to develop methods to meet our audiences where they are. Central to the project is the Bordr digital tool for connection of border stories that will be used in and across all projects. The partners will also co-design our action-sharing database EuropeGrandCentral.net hosted by Trans Europe Halles, the main network of independent European culture centres, which serve as our communication, dissemination, and legacy partner. Over two years we will have four project meetings, and in 2017 we will coordinate “Europe Grand Central” an all-European simultaneous show of local-global presentations and the main event of the project. We will carefully analyse and spread our lessons with help of our associated research and dissemination partners; world leading universities and public institutions.
At the heart of everything we do we share a desire to understand and share the connections of human experiences and to mobilize these stories into action that changes lives. We work to produce an inclusive statement of diversity with potential to start a global movement of connected human values.
Borders explored
Locally defined in each partner project
Method
Two of the methods used are produced by in close collaboration with Bordr.
– A project sharing database built along the lines of this very site with the ambition to learn best practices of audience inclusion and engagement.
– A customization of the Bordr iPhone app, providing all project partners the ability to submit locally adopted border stories in local languages, with custom made inputs, and integrity settings.
Purpose
1. To transform perceptions of border crossings from suspicion into curiosity.
2. To empower under-‐ and misrepresented individuals and groups through storytelling.
3. To learn and develop methods of local audience development, inclusion, interaction, mobility and outreach, and to spread these methods to interested culture actors across Europe and beyond.
Audience
Locally defined in each partner project
Project Period
Start: September 1, 2015
Last activity: August 31, 2017
Locations
This is a project based at:
Not Quite ekonomisk förening, Fengersfors, Sweden
Partnering with:
Trans Europe Halles, The European Network of Cultural Centers
Fonds Roberto Cimetta, Paris, France
Kulturzentrum Schlachthof, Bremen, Germany
ODC Non-profit Theater Company, Athens, Greece
Assoziazione Laminarie, Bologna, Italy
Europejska Fundacja Kultury Miejskiej, Lublin, Poland
Project results
Bordr expect to learn a great deal from our involvement with Europe Grand Central. It lies at the heart of our interests and will be a crucial incubator for the methods and technologies ingrained in Bordr.
Inspired by
Everything we’ve done so far at Bordr…
Difficulties
Coordination, financial requirements, technical robustness. And, above all, to create curiosity for border crossings in Europe. It will indeed be a great challenge.
Miscellaneous
A lot, soon.
Credit
Project Leader: Marcus Haraldsson, Bordr, based at Not Quite Artist Cooperative
Lead Developer / Design Researcher: Christo de Klerk, Bordr
Financial Officer: Malin Palm, Not Quite Artist Cooperative
Communications Director: is being recruited (Nov 2015), Trans Europe Halles
Local Project Leaders and Financial Officers at each of seven partners.
More
About the project on the official page of the European Commission
Project website: www.europegrandcentral.net