“Please don’t call us refugees, it is a heavy title that I would like to liberate us from, we are new comers”

From an interview with a man recently arrived from Syria.

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This project focuses on the recent influx of migrants from Syria and neighbouring countries.

VPS intention is to replace the word refugee and focus on the person behind the label, on who they were before they became victims of war. The idea of this project is to introduce them to their new community to define their role allowing them to become part of their adopted cultural landscape. These interventions evolved from conversations and observations of local communities and newcomers and it aims to reflect on the subject from all possible angles. The area of Kreuzberg was chosen for these interventions because it is the heart of multicultural Berlin Because of this the intervention is structured into three areas: Newcomers, Berliners and Numbers & Bureaucracy.

 

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NEWCOMERS

 

Through projections in Prinzessinnengarten and in Oranienstrasse 45, the newcomers were given a visual animated voice. 25 unedited phrases taken from different interviews give an insight into the newcomers’ trip to and arrival in Berlin. The projections took place in in the public garden Prinzessinnengarten the open air cinema had a view onto Moritzplatz and in the widows on Oranienstrasse. The animated projections were on view for a week.

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