The workshop participants explore the reasons why the Archive of Refuge interviewees left their countries and what is was like for them to arrive in Germany. Building on these narratives, they devise their own idea of what a decent or ideal place to arrive in should be like. They start by putting their thoughts on a sheet of paper as a prototype, then they implement their idea with multiple media on the learning platform CoSpaces so that they can experience their imagined world with VR glasses.
This method is designed to add an archive containing the (polyphonic) voices of young people to the Archive of Refuge. The histories and narratives in the Archive are written up and narrated. In so doing, the young participants complement narratives from the Archive of Refuge with their own histories and experience. With this in mind, various aspects within the biographies of those who have experienced racism are discussed and a variety of narrative approaches are addressed. Drawing on the storytelling method, participants identify and work up similarities and differences to their own lives.After this, the stories from the Archive of Refuge are expanded by stories from the young people formulated in written contributions, voice messages or videos statements.
The workshop participants engage with interviewees in the Archive of Refuge to understand what made them seek refuge elsewhere and what circumstances they encountered upon arrival. Drawing on these stories, they formulate their own ideas about the ideal conditions for refugees to encounter on arrival. After putting their ideas down on paper to create a prototype, they use multiple media to translate this vision into virtual reality on the learning platform CoSpaces, which they can then experience with VR glasses.
The objective of this method is to help workshop participants recognise why the Archive of Refuge is relevant to them. With this in mind, the method draws on narratives from the Archive of Refuge as examples to illustrate how racism and other forms of discrimination with an intersectional impact are rooted in society. The participants’ own perspectives on experiencing racism and discrimination should be recorded in an audio format during the workshop.
Until they “arrive” somewhere, refugees must spend time in places that make no reference to traditional thought patterns or to history. Railway stations, ships, airports and motorways are examples of these “non-places”. This workshop encourages young participants to bring statements by interviewees in the Archive of Refuge to life by applying creative techniques.
Oral history gives visibility to histories that have been under-represented, and that includes women’s experience as refugees and migrants. The participants are given a short introduction using data visualisation in order to illustrate how history writing and descriptions of migration and flight are often influenced by a male perspective. Through selected sequences from Archive interviews, the participants explore reasons for seeking refuge and experiences during the process that are specific to women. They visualise these aspects in a simple form of data journalism.
The participants produce a peer-to-peer chat format for places in interviews that require more explanation. In so doing they discover the significance of oral history and sources and what is distinctive about this approach to history writing. Contextualisation is provided by a messenger-type simulation that follows a question-and-answer logic and reflects the “orality” aspect in a familiar way.
