How can we create a framework in which two communities- a refugee women group in Berlin and a working-class community in Plymouth- often positioned on opposite sides of anti-immigrant narratives, can encounter one another beyond stereotypes, develop empathy for each other’s lived realities, and begin to extend gestures of hospitality and solidarity?
In the frame of this program, Take a Part and iCollective are not only exchanging practice and approaches to socially engaged work but also collaborating to process methods and strategies that counteract the rise of nationalism in their own contexts but also put these communities in care-orientated dialogue.
Through Tactics of Togetherness we’re asking- If hospitality means making a place our own, how can we open it up through gestures and attitudes that allow others to feel at home, too? Exploring this question with people who have experienced forced displacement is a way of creating space for them to claim their right to belong, and to become hosts themselves, opening the doors to a place where they may not have been born but which they now call home.
So far we’ve been thinking about competencies, superpowers and the things in life that act as levellers- food, music and good company as we’ve begun exchanging packages of care together and thinking about what makes us feel welcome, safe and connected.
Gem Smith, Head of Communities Programme at Take A Part, and Valeria Schwarz, Artist from iCollective recently took part in exchange trips to each others city to connect share practice, meet each others groups and initiate the project;
“I had never been to Berlin, let alone Germany and so was naturally both excited and apprehensive to be travelling there as part of our work in collaboration with iCollective…
After taking in some tourist highlights in the centre, Valeria and I headed to meet the group of migrant women taking part in the project in Berlin. The session was taking place in the local library Stadtteilbibliothek Buch…The women arrived and over the course of snacks and coffee caught up with each other and then their session began. After introductions to share where they had come from (many from Afghanistan and Iran) they started discussing the project and what they might include and share in their first package back to the UK. As someone who is usually so verbose, to be in a space where I couldn’t speak or understand the language was a real challenge and very humbling. I had to focus hard to really lean into the social and physical cues to try and understand what might be being said and shared. It required a lot of concentration and it really hit home for me how it must feel to arrive somewhere new, unable to speak or understand the language around you despite wanting to connect with people…
The visit was a wonderful opportunity, a whirlwind for the senses and left me with lots to consider as we take Tactics for Togetherness forwards. Back in Plymouth our families opened package 1 (which I brought back with me from the trip)- they were excited and touched to receive the handwritten letters and learn a little about the women, a set of letters and drawings to share back with a little information about the families is now in the post back to Berlin” Gem Smith
“Travelling means stepping away from our daily routines. It involves planning itineraries, choosing small gifts, applying for visas and navigating the countless regulations that govern our movements. And yet, being able to leave home knowing we can return is a privilege. In my suitcase, I carried stories from people who had been forced to leave their homes. They are asylum seekers for whom Buch, in Berlin, has become a new home- and who are now ready to claim their agency in shaping the place we call home. The letters were written in the frame of workshops at the library of Buch, which I facilitated together with Lucila Guichón.
Once in Plymouth Gem, the community’s very own fairy godmother, welcomed me with extraordinary warmth. She introduced me to Plymouth’s arts scene during the Art Weekender, connected me with people from the local cultural community and showed me around the city, from its well-known sights to its less touristy corners. Together, we also facilitated a workshop for local families, giving me a first-hand insight into Take a Part’s participatory methods and its ways of building relationships with the community. Thanks to Take a Part, the local community and Gem in particular, I spent a few days in Plymouth—and, for a little while, it felt like home.
In my suitcase on the way back, I carried the families’ letters in response to the women in Berlin: letters filled with tips for a perfect day in Plymouth, recipes and small gifts that we will share together. More than souvenirs, they are small invitations to imagine a place through the eyes of the people who live there.
Perhaps this is what hospitality can do: make a place feel a little less unfamiliar, turn strangers into guests, and create the conditions for people to feel they belong, wherever they are.” Valeria Schwarz
