[The Big Arrival] – patricia ines hoeppe

Art-Exhibition with Tableau Vivantes and Talk, Festsaal /Goethe University Frankfurt Main:
„Wie es gelingt“, European Social Found/ Hessisches Ministerium für Soziales und Integration, 9/2016

The Arrival of more than one million refugees

in Germany is the topic of this work-in-progress-project. Performers and participants are European/ German citizens and refugees. Individual spaces and social fields are being explored by 1. grasping them, 2. experiencing by opening possibilities and spaces for action and 3. negotiating one’s position in a social field of democratic values- in order to find and create a good togetherness.
„The participants can experience cultural participation in the democratic societal system through this exhibition. The performative methods applied in the exhibition are democratic processes. Through mimetic and poietic practices, participants can assert their own positions and negotiate them with others. These competencies, gained through art, are proven to be transferable. Therefore, cultural education and performance art seem to be a meaningful path toward cultural integration,“ says Patricia Hoeppe. (Excerpt from the press release, Fra UAS supplement). The experienced artistically acquired competences are transferable and contribute to a cultural integration of diversity.

Grasping Suffering and Trauma

manifested by situations of flight is the attempt, which exist in the collective memory of of both: older Europeans and young refugees and which are becoming more and more a worldwide experience. Over 150 unaccompanied minor refugees, 60 students and citizens participated in the artistic platform ‚The Big Arrival‘ to recognize their own fears, grasp the incomprehensible experiences, make their viewpoints visible, and negotiate these artistically.