New Midlanders (Surviving Fortress Europe)

New Midlanders (SurvivingFortress Europe) is an ongoing socially engaged project, involving Coventry/WestMidland based asylum seeker and refugee participants.

The outputs include: Audio-VisualArtworks and related photo publication, developed from self-reflectivephoto workshops and interviews, utilising image making and story telling processeswith collaborators.

Facilitated by two successful rounds of funding (2018/2019) by the Creative Exchange Open Call programme(granted funds by Connecting Cultures) to support public engagement projectsbetween Warwick and Coventry Universities; the project focuses on thetestimonies of people from communities around the world who have arrived inCoventry/West Midlands (often graphically illustrating the complexity of asylumas it is experienced), and involves ongoing work with a community thatcontinues to be socially challenged, under-represented and often invisiblebecause of marginalisation, ethnicity and socio-economic status. This workbuilds on the positively received phase one project (2018), the research anddevelopment of small-scale works (collaborative photo-video), which laid thefoundation for a second stage (2019), with a potentially larger project for theUK City of Culture 2021, Coventry. New Midlanders is currently being developedwith a consortium of partner organisations: Coventry Migrant and Refugee Centre(CMRC), Coventry Peace House, Coventry Asylum and Refugee Action Group (CARAG),Hope Into Action Black Country (and others), withguidance from the Active Wellbeing Society.

Working with destituteasylum seekers who have no recourse to public funds; individuals fleeingviolence, conflict, war and persecution (from countries including Sudan andDarfur, Eritrea, Syria, Iran and Kuwait), the project exploresissues of ‘self representation’, cultural difference, identity (allinvestigating connections between diversity and migration), and attempts to renegotiate negative and stereotypicalperceptions, as often portrayed in the media.

An online showcase will communicate its exhibitionoutcomes internationally to the wider public on World Refugee Day, 2019, and willbe regionally hosted by CMRC.