At the beginning of the 21st century, the growth of global migration is unprecedented. Unlike in previous years, it is not only Europeans who are migrating around the world, but the entire planet is on the move. Migration has become increasingly global and tripled since the mid-1970s: in 1975, 77 million people lived in a country other than the one in which they were born, compared to more than 200 million today, i.e. 3% of the world’s population, and 740 million domestic migrants. One-sixth of the world’s population has thus entered a period of mobility.

This process will further continue since the current factors of migration are not about to disappear anytime soon and we are currently witnessing a shift in the types of migrant groups, who take on several characteristics during their lives and who can belong to several identities at the same time.

The migrants themselves have diversified. They used to usually be young, low-skilled men from rural areas. Nowadays, migrants can mostly be unaccompanied minors, executives, elderly people, students, IPR.

Faced with this new reality, the artists reflect on the societal impacts of these movements, especially when it comes to the human relationships that arise from them.

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Leyla Rabih Traverses

During her residency, Leyla-Claire Rabih, a French director of Syrian origin, worked with her company on the preparation of the theatrical project entitled TRAVERSES. This is an intimate documentary project about Syrian migration and the diaspora. It was created from interviews conducted by the team throughout Europe (Lebanon, Greece, France, Belgium). During these meetings, only the hands were filmed, making the collected testimonies even more intimate and universal. Between theater, performance, and projections, the team narrates as much as it narrates itself, in an archetype-type-like device that declines according to the places.

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Building Society through Comics Our female diversity

Under the initiative of neimënster and with the support of the Department of Integration of the Ministry of Family, Integration and the Greater Region, discussion workshops have been opened from October 2021 to February 2022 to collect the testimonials of migrant women or their companions. These stories, collected by the writer and poet Vanessa Buffone, will form the backbone of 8 comics that will be produced in residence by Angeles Cornejo and Sol Cifuentes, Argentinean scenographer and cartoonist invited for the second time in our premises. The comics will then be completed with documentative information (statistics, photographs, etc.) offering thematic continuities to these stories.