Blog – Refugee Roads

Refugee Art

By Refugee Roads | October 18, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Art has always been a mystery to me. And before our cycling journey, I was unable to fully grasp the importance of visually expressing oneself. But during the Refugee Roads journey, this changed.

After our hasty arrival in La Liniere Camp in France, which was the first refugee camp I have ever been to, I took a walk around the wooden cabins to get to know the facility and to sort out my thoughts. At the back of one of the huts I stumbled upon this art piece:

It seemed so unreal. There I was, in eyesight of the train tracks heading to the UK, looking at this painting of a bridge at night that wished everyone that was about to attempt the dangerous crossing simply “Good luck”. Trying to grasp this paradox moved me deeply and I teared up.

From there on out we saw works of art at almost every stop we made. Ranging from simple slogans sprayed on camp walls to comprehensive and professional painting projects, art seemed to be one of many underlying themes of the refugee crisis in the Balkans.

But why? How do the concepts of ‘art’ and ‘refugee’ fit together? Well, there are three points that I took away from our encounters that each may just deliver a part of the answer.

First of all, I came to learn that the desire to take past experiences, emotions and creative thoughts is inherently human and does not know any borders. Art pieces act as a universal language, thereby transcending existing cultural, social, and language boundaries. Through creating, the artists can reach fellow humans on a communicative level which would otherwise be unavailable to them.

Artwork Credits: Ghazwan Assaf

Secondly, we found that especially in such dire living situations, creating drawings or paintings may have a therapeutic effect. Shergo, who we met in a refugee camp in Northern Macedonia created over 200 pencil drawings throughout his four-year journey. He told us that he uses his drawings as an outlet to transfer the experiences of his journey out of his head and onto the paper. “My art helps me to keep a clear heart”, he said.

And thirdly, refugee art functions as a means of creating empathy for the situation of the ‘Other’. Through participatory art projects in refugee camps, refugee art shows in western museums, just as much as with public art installations around the world, conversations around migration are created. When the message behind a drawing is being received by a person in the host society, a small bridge of understanding is developed, thereby facilitating integration in the long run.

These bridges are being built not only from people who are currently fleeing their homes but also from former refugees who have arrived at their destination. Through organizing galleries centered on the topic of migration, publishing art online, and giving media interviews about their work, their art helps in raising public awareness.

The most famous example of this is the renowned artist Ai WeiWei. Growing up as a refugee himself, he centers a lot of his pieces on the topic of migration to showcase the ‘narrow-minded’ attempts used to ‘create some kind of hatred between people’. He also produced the feature ‘Human Flow’ to inform his viewers of the global refugee crisis.

More Info:

7 art initiatives that are transforming the lives of refugees

The Syrian Refugee Art Initiative

Janso Isso’s Story – A Kurdish Artist in Canada

Ai Weiwei’s Art Pieces about Refugees

“The refugee crisis is not about refugees. It is about us.” – Ai Weiwei

Willkommenskultur

By Refugee Roads | October 18, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Day 12, On the road

The German word Willkommenskultur was elected in Austria in December 2015 as “Word of the Year”. The term was all over the news back then and is still used today to describe a certain mindset in European society. But what does it stand for? And which cultural dimensions are surrounding it?

It was in the 2000s when the German political sphere brought the call for a pluralistic attitude to the middle of society. The general public started to realize that integration cannot function as a one-way street alone. Yet it requires collective efforts from both the refugees and the host society. This realization formed the foundation for the grassroots movement that welcomed refugees along the German border. It simultaneously led Chancellor Merkel to utter her famous words “Wir schaffen das” – We can do this. In cities like Munich, the meaning of these theoretic words could be witnessed in quick individual displays of solidarity when the flows of refugees hit German territory. Citizens opened their homes and wallets and donated their time to support the newcomers.

Not only during this trip now, but also three years ago, was the welcoming attitude of the people we met a pleasant surprise to me. Even in countries such as Hungary that seem to be stereotypically hostile towards refugees. Everywhere we went parts of the civil society stepped up to take over tasks that are usually assigned to the State. Food, Water, and other essential goods were and are collected, sorted, and distributed by volunteers and NGO’s all over the Balkan Route.

Yes, I did not encounter many people in the hotspots that we visited that were openly against welcoming refugees. I would love to though. Hearing all perspectives is nonetheless one of the goals of this project. So, if you have critical thoughts about “Willkommenskultur”, please contact us!

Meanwhile, read more about the expression here:

Policy brief in German

A critical article in German by Die Welt

2018 article in German about the development of civil initiatives since then

English summary on the term

Best,

Florian

Ankommen App

By Refugee Roads | October 18, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Day 10, In an airport

We as humans are a migratory species. We leave our sleeping spots to go to work and we usually do not eat where we wash our bodies. We all travel daily: to school, to work, or to meet our friends. Even when we do not transcend national borders, we move around. Luckily, every journey concludes at some point. We reach our final stop, we arrive.

In 2016, we spoke with Mustafa K. Isik in Munich. He is the head designer of the app ‘Ankommen’, which is the German word for ‘arriving’. With his team at the Bavarian Rundfunk, Mustafa gathered valuable information about life in Germany and designed in into an easy-to-use interface.

The app now provides information about the legal asylum process, job procedures, and traditions and customs in German society from a neutral point of view. Questions such as “What happens if my asylum request is denied?”, how to navigate the recycling system of trash and what standards form the base of our ‘Rechtsstaat’, are all answered in five different languages. It also links online courses that teach basic German.

Access to information is key to the success of every journey. Apps like this one help refugees and aid workers alike to ease the struggle of arriving in a new and unknown place for everyone involved. It serves as a valuable stock of answers to questions we all encounter when moving to a new country, and the app provides those answers at the touch of your fingertip.

Today, the app was downloaded over 200.000 times. It was co-initiated and financed by the Goethe Institut, the German Ministry of Migration and Refugees, and the Bundesagentur für Arbeit.

Take a peek yourself, it is available on the Play and the App Store.

https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/ankommen/id1066804488

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.br.ankommen

Habibi & Hawara & HTyMpls – Integration in Vienna in 2019

By Refugee Roads | October 18, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Day 09, Austria

I am back in Vienna! I can’t believe it has been almost three years since Refugee Roads explored the issue of Integration here. Just as our project changed and developed since then, so have the project we visited back in 2016.

Habibi & Hawara, the social enterprise that runs a restaurant in collaboration with people with refugee status, still serves amazing cuisine. I was surprised to find that they took over the shop next to them and expanded their facilities threefold. They now have a second floor, an event room, and a regular lunch buffet where they serve the best Austrian-Syrian fusion foods I have ever eaten.

Katha Schinkinger now supports the startup in the position of Directrice. She also spearheaded the recent crowd investment efforts to open their second store in the beginning of 2020. They will start placing some of their foods in supermarkets nationwide and have also planned to expand their concept into Germany soon.

Our friend the barkeeper who we interviewed back then has now switched restaurants. We were fortunate enough to meet him before his shift at the Belvedere Castle. His German is fluent now, he even adopted the Austrian accent. It was great to catch up with him and conduct a follow-up interview.

I also had the pleasure to be hosted again by Happy.Thankyou.More. Please. Alina gave me all the insights on their recent development. They have changed locations to a more central district and now function as the Happy Market, where they serve refugees by enabling them to “go shopping” in their store on their own. They pick and choose which donated clothes they enjoy and thus reclaim their dignity, said Alina. The kids get to pick their new toys, too!

All in all, I can say that the integration projects have normalized and are now a regular part of the public sphere in the city. I guess this is because help continues to be needed and newly arrived refugees continue to need assistance with their integration process. On one hand, the people behind these initiatives deserve to be commended for their efforts. On the other hand, the question arises though, how much longer are these projects needed?

Best wishes,

Florian

Conquering the freezing lorry first, and the theater stage second

By Refugee Roads | October 18, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Day 06, In a bus

Hossein. Our encounter with him in 2016 really put the issue of unaccompanied minors in our view. Back then we met him in a camp in Northern France, right between two nightly cycles of trying to stop a truck on the local highway and hiding in it for up to a day to stay unnoticed and to so cross the border to the UK. He was traveling all alone; his Iranian mother did not have the funds to flee the war altogether. So, in 2015 she sent him, to enable him to have a safe future in the UK.

I followed Hossein like so many others on Facebook and it took a couple more weeks until Hossein finally left the strained conditions in the French camp for good. I learned later that it took him 16 hours in a freezing lorry, withstanding temperatures around 0 degrees Celsius to reach his destination.

Fast forward to November 2018. Scrolling through our timeline I suddenly saw a familiar face on the article of a local UK news site. Foster parents had taken Hossein in and he had enrolled in college to study theatre. He was awarded student of the year just a couple weeks earlier. And now he was on trial.

The British Home Office had rejected his asylum application and told him that it was safe for him to return to Iran. Yet Hossein feared that he would be executed on his return because of his family’s involvement in politics. When the appeal came around in December, the local community had mobilized in front of the court, the college had released a statement in his support, and thousands had signed a petition to prevent his deportation. Luckily, the judge overruled the decision of the Home Office and granted Hossein a five-year permit to stay.

Through seeing this story unfold, I learned another significant detail about him. In an interview, he explained why he is so passionate about being on stage. He has not spoken to his mother and has no way of contacting her since he left. He hopes that one day she will see him on stage so that they can reunite.

Best, Florian

Shergo – An Artist’s Path to Europe

By Refugee Roads | April 4, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Day 02, Germany

Last weekend we had the pleasure to spend a whole afternoon with Shergo and his family. Do you remember them? We met in 2016 in a refugee camp in Gevgelija near the Macedonian/Serbian border. When getting to know each other in the camp, Shergo showed us his drawings tucked away in the container where he lived for the time being. While we went through his artwork in awe, his daughter Avin told us that the camp feels like a prison to her because nobody was allowed to leave.

Now, the family lives together with eight other families in a house in Germany, where they are waiting for the result of their asylum procedures. When we asked them to compare their situation now to their life back in the Macedonian camp, Shergo said he felt as if not much had changed yet; their physical journey may be over but they’re still waiting to restart their life. They left Syria back in 2014, so it has been five years now without a proper place that they can call home.

Timo and me were not only invited to two rounds of tea, but Shergo also played some music and his wife prepared a huge meal that we were invited to. Over dinner, Shergo’s daughter Avin shared some great news with us. She married last year and now calls a very fine man by the name of Hussein her husband. They lived in the same village back in Syria and met again by chance here in Germany. They’re also expecting a son in April.

And Shergo kept on drawing. He was proud to show us over 150 of his art pieces. According to him, making art has helped him to keep a clean and happy heart throughout his journey. All his emotions and events are processed on paper. He is looking to share his drawings with a wide audience and would love to be invited for an art exhibition.

One of our most memorable moments during our visit was when we asked them about their home in Syria. Unfortunately, a recent video of their home on Shergo’s phone showed us all but a bunch of gravel. A prayer rug woven by Shergo’s mum is the single item that the whole family still owns from their home. Everything else of their original material possessions is gone.

Despite these emotional stories and experiences, Timo and I felt as welcome as in the house of long-lost relatives. They were very glad to see us again and treated us very warm-hearted. We left after food, music, tea, and stories, and already made plans to see each other again soon. Timo is also currently working with Shergo to look for alternative venues to publish his art work. We will keep you posted!

Read up on our initial meeting with Shergo and his family here: http://blog.refugeeroads.com/blog/the-mother-theresas-of-macedonia/

From the road,

Florian

Refugee Roads: The Journey Continues

By Refugee Roads | March 29, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Day 01, On a Train

Hello. Welcome back. Timo and I are on the road again. We just started traveling again last Saturday. No bikes this time around and more weekend trips. Still, same route all the way until Lesvos. Same equipment, just two small cameras. Different issues, same story. And it has been almost three years since our first journey. What has happened since then? What didn’t happen? How did the places and the people that are a part of Refugee Roads since 2016 develop? These are the topics that Timo and I want to explore during the upcoming month.

What happened to the makeshift barbershop in the Calais “jungle”, where Timo got a haircut, after its inhabitants were forcefully removed in 2017? Does the barkeeper from the restaurant Habibi & Hawara in Vienna feel like he settled in (whatever that really means)? We heard our artist friend from Syria who got stuck in Macedonia now plans his own art exhibition in Germany – how did he get there? How did the situation in the transit zone between Hungary and Serbia change? Do refugees arriving to Lesvos experience the same kind of welcome they did in 2015-16? How does their onward movement look like?

Whatever new information we find will also become a part of the final web series, which will be released this summer. In short, it’s time to catch up! We hope this second journey will allow you to reflect on the developments of the past three years – the ever-changing stories that we captured in 2016. In any case, the people behind those stories have not disappeared. And some of them are still waiting for their case to be heard.

We will take you along as best as we can in the next couple of weeks. With the usual blogposts here on our website and with updates on our Facebook page. Please send us questions you have about the project or the current situation on the Balkan Route and we will do our best to look for answers. Thanks to the NRW Film and Media Foundation for making this second journey possible. And thanks to you as a community for still being here.

From the road,

Timo & Florian

Refugee Roads Project Presentations 2018

By Refugee Roads | September 29, 2018 | Comments 0 Comment

Dear all,

we just finished to update our 2018 project presentations in order to give you an idea on recent developments and our future plans. Feel free to check them out in English or in German. We also met up with our co-producers Tal and Su-Jin last week in Cologne for our first conceptualization meeting. There we discussed the structure of the upcoming episodes and further plans for the future of this project. Big things will be happening in the upcoming year for Refugee Roads and we are very excited. We will keep you in the loop!

As always, please message us with any questions you might have, either on Facebook or directly via e-mail.

Warm wishes,

Florian & Timo

Film- und Medienstiftung NRW Funds Next Episodes – the Journey Continues!

By Refugee Roads | August 7, 2018 | Comments 0 Comment

1. Funding of New Episodes

Two years ago we had just arrived in Thessaloniki, Greece after cycling over 2000km. It was a bittersweet feeling to arrive in this next destination of ours, knowing that the trip from now on will look different as a long ferry ride was ahead of us. We also knew that our work however was far from over and that the situation we would encounter in Lesvos may probably be the toughest yet.

Last week we received the news that our yearlong search for further funding is finally bearing fruits. And we are beyond the moon to now be able to share this huge development with you! The Film- and Medienstiftung NRW has decided to support our post-production with €30.000 over the course of the next six months. This means that from now on our journey will once more take on a new form, which feels similar to Thessaloniki back then. We will spend the months ahead with formalizing all necessary paperwork. Such a big sum comes naturally with some bureaucracy and financial audits on how we are using the money. After the paperwork we will head back to the editing room to bring the next episodes to you!

We are confident that with these funds we will be able to bring the production of Refugee Roads to a close by summer 2019. Afterwards we will eventually transit to spreading the episodes as far as possible. We don’t know exactly how that will look like yet but we already discussed ideas like an updated and interactive website, a showing tour through parts of Europe, an extensive festival campaign, and much more. So please stay tuned and have just a little more patience!

2. Festival Selections

In addition to funding we are also glad to announce that the pilot episode has been selected by two film festivals. We are very grateful that through these selection we will reach a wider audience and hope that the message of Refugee Roads will be heard by a few more people. On August 9 the Respect Human Rights Filmfestival will screen the Pilot in Belfast, Ireland. And on August 18 it will be screened during the Web Series Festival in Utah, USA. Thank you for the recognition!

With best wishes,

Florian & Timo

First Episode: Picture Lock

By Refugee Roads | April 7, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

Hey there!

Together with our team, we were able to announce Picture Lock for the first episode yesterday! Meaning that all the visual scenes are in place and not to be messed with anymore. The next three weeks will be devoted to color correction, audio design and finalizing the animations. And then, if everything goes as planned, we should have a first final product!

After months of skype meetings, Timo & I hosted the first production meeting in Den Haag on Wednesday by inviting our German co-producers over. Our incredible musicians Bart & Peter let us crash their studio and skillfully supported us in achieving our first objective of the day: to record the final version of the Voice Over. They are incredibly talented, greeted us with a warm cup of tea and guided us with a lot of patience during our session. Awesome!

Afterwards, we headed to the windy beach in Scheveningen (see pictures below) and talked strategy for the upcoming months. While the sun set behind the horizon, we clarified the overall vision of Refugee Roads, defined clearer goals until the end of the year and aligned our expectations once more. It left us with yet another massive motivation boost. There is still a long road ahead of us before we will have up to six complete episodes. Yet we are more determined than ever to reach this goal and to present all the stories behind Refugee Roads to you guys.

Have a great weekend,

Timo & Florian