1.What is your vision on solidarity in Europe and a shared European public sphere?

Our vision of solidarity relies on the exchange of practices, of experiences, memories and fantasies to generate collective, fragmentary but inclusive European narratives. For us, a shared European public place should allow the sharing of stories, experiences and engaged practices, to allow for the experimentation of new ways of perceiving and making sense of borders. In the face of the militarisation of border landscapes and the immobility imposed today, the programme invites Euro-mediterranean researchers, activists, architects, designers and artists to navigate between the margins, thresholds and blind spots of the established maps, inherited from [post–colonial fictions, that govern European territories, from the continent to the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in northern Morocco.

2. How do can you contribute to that?

Through our programmes planned in Rotterdam, Maastricht, Marseille and Tangiers, we aim to reach an Euro-mediterranean and local audience, politically curious and willing to discuss the issues we identified with our collaborators, as well as to reflect on the similarities and differences of perception that can be foreseen amongst the Western and the Southern experiences of Mediterranean liminal territories. We also hope to see different types of audiences meet and mix: art scenes, activists, researchers, architects, journalists, students, sailors, people in exile. Out.of.the.blue.map proposes potential and possible visions and experiences of Mediterranean borderscapes through the sharing of practices. The added value of the project lies primarily in its local and cooperative nature, but also in the expertise and finesse provided by its contributors. The articulation of informal, bottom-up practices will bring a valuable contribution to the field. 

While most of our program had to be postponed due to the pandemic, during the lockdown, the program pursues its calls for contributions for the 2d version of "On Drifting”. Created by the collective Calypso3621°, translated into French, English and Arabic, this lexicon is an evolving and participative editorial object, published several times during the programme, each time adding new contributions from artists, activists, researchers, architects, sailors, exiled people, and extracts from maritime and terrestrial jurisdictions. From shore to shore, the lexicon brings together visual and textual fragments to compose a multi-layered narrative. Throughout the pages, it explores the state of suspension, the in-between, and navigates at the crossroads of the ruptures that punctuate Euro-Mediterranean liminal territories. Conceived as an alternative map to the liminal spaces of the Mediterranean, the lexicon allows one to cross, to go around, to return to the words and images that are gathered there, and thus allows different readings of the territory.

From September on, Out.of.the.blue.map will set up exhibitions, talks and workshops in France, Morocco and the Netherlands. Our series of workshop gather Dutch, Moroccan and French participants, whose practice questions, contests or summons mapping processes of conflictual, and liminal spaces. Amongst others, we will organise a sound mapping workshop, to record a collective sound archive of the borderscapes surrounding Tangiers.

3. How would you like to collaborate with the other participants (check the profiles!) to make that happen

We would like to get a better understanding of their projects, and try to imagine ways to collaborate, through workshops, talks, and contribution to our lexicon. Our project is deeply anchored in a collaborative practice, and so we would like to create exchanges, initiate conversations around the issues that link our project to theirs.