Audiovisuals : Claiming Presence (Event Description)

Telling stories is using your own voice and your own look over things to examine the world and to represent yourself in it. It is an opportunity to fight against exclusion, objectification and stereotypes.

It is about de-othering and de-colonizing the gaze, expressing difference and using our imagination to offer a bigger picture of who we are as Europeans.

The Afro-European Narratives project challenges participants to tell stories with words, but also with images and sounds, to enrich the representation and understanding of past and present and, most of all, to express current European diversity.

In 2018-2019, there have been many stories published on the African-European Narratives portal that use illustration, photography, video and other new media languages to de-othering Europe. Navigate through that Afro-European landscape on africaneuropeanarratives.eu.

Event description
ACTION 3 – AUDIOVISUAL Stories and Participatory Documentary

The AUDIOVISUAL production of stories and participatory documentar involved 33 citizens, including 10 from the cities of Amadora (Cacém), Alamada (Monte da Caparica) and Sacavém (PT), 2 from the city of Lisbon (PT), 11 from the city of Bordeaux (FR), 10 from the city of Berlin (DE).

Venues/Dates: Activities related to audiovisual production took place in Lisbon, in Cacém/Amadora, Caparica/Almada and Sacavém (PT) from 25th May 2018 to 29th May 2019 in School Ferreira Dias, School Monte da Caparica and School of Sacavém; in Berlin, namely at SAVVY Contemporary (DE), from 17-19 December 2018; in Bordeaux, namely at Université Bordeaux-Montaigne (FR) from 2-30 April 2019,

Description: The Audiovisual Production aimed to support participants in telling their stories in images and/or sound and therefore exercising their own look over things and using their voices to represent themselves and the world around them. This was a focal point of the Digital Storytelling workshops carried out by the project team in Lisbon and the partner team at Bordeaux, under the guidance of 3 young researchers and creators in the field of Communication and filmmaking. These audiovisual, narratives and other stories in texts and illustrations, constituted the base of a central piece – the participatory documentary “Stories from Here and There” – put together through the casting of 30 participants and the content produced by them.

This methodology was particularly important to promote the self-representation of Afrodescendant participants, allowing them to oppose stereotypes about Black identity and culture, often served in the objectivation of ethnical difference, approach their intercultural condition and assess issues concerning their origin communities. The use of image and sound also challenged the creative and digital skills of participants, extended the multimedia nature of the archive an enriched its imaginary expression.