Why emigration needs different formats
Emigration has no single "right" story. Everyone leaves in their own way, and everyone needs a place where their experience will be heard. A film gives emotion and plot. A platform or archive gathers many voices. An exhibition offers a physical space where you can stand next to someone else's experience. Together they create a depth that no single format has.
Animation as a language of memory
Persepolis (2007) by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud — an autobiographical story of growing up and emigrating from Iran, first a graphic novel and then an animated film. An example of how one story moves from format to format.
Flee tells the story of an Afghan refugee in animation to protect him — and at the same time makes his experience close to viewers all over the world.
Interactive media and archives
For many years the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has been collecting films about the experience of immigrants and refugees and making interactive projects — for example, about refugees' first days in a new country. Researchers of interactive practices note that web formats let viewers choose their own path through a story — almost like real migration, where everyone has their own route.
The exhibition as experience
An installation works with the body: sound, light, scale, silence. It lets you live through something, not just understand it — and becomes a meeting place for those who left and those who stayed.
MIGRANTISM: reflecting on emigration
We are preparing MIGRANTISM — a multiplatform project with galleries in France: a platform about emigration and an installation for galleries and exhibitions, co-created with artists who speak about emigration. We are interested not only in "why people leave" but in emigration as a state — how it changes language, memory and the idea of home.
How to start such a project
- Decide whose voice is heard: the author's, the subjects', the community's.
- Build an archive: interviews, letters, photographs, objects.
- Choose formats for different audiences — festival, online, exhibition.
- Think through the ethics: anonymity, consent, the safety of your subjects.
Working on emigration? Let's talk — we make projects like this at the crossroads of animation, text and exhibition.