Through workshops, group discussions and various non-formal education activities, "The Other in (Me)dia" aimed to open a critical conversation around the links between storytelling and race while enhancing participants’ artistic skills.

By providing a space where people with different backgrounds could come together and share their voices, the project hoped to foster a deeper understanding and empathy towards the Others in society while creating alternative and more inclusive media representations.

The Other in (Me)dia pursued the following objectives;

- Develop critical thinking and gain analytical skills around the representation of the Other in the media;

- Create a safe space where participants can share experiences and thoughts in freedom;

- Gain some basic knowledge of audiovisual language and racial representation;

- Share good practices and counter examples in terms of creation and representation;

- Seek collective empowerment through artistic creation: photography, filmmaking, and other visual and textual arts;

- Promote teamwork, exchange, and debate in multicultural groups;

- Promote the opportunities of the Erasmus+ program.

Those goals were achieved through activities revolving around three fundamental pillars:

Many young people today lack a solid understanding of their country's history, making it difficult for them to connect past colonial eras with the present geopolitical landscape.

Additionally, certain narratives and stereotypes that persist today originated from historical periods, emphasizing the need to understand their roots to effectively combat them.

In our exploration, we delved into questions such as: How has history been narrated from different perspectives? Why do we use certain languages? What are the global patterns of wealth distribution, and how do they trace back to ancient empires and modern migration patterns? How does colonialism continue to influence contemporary society?

These topics were approached through various means including theater, debates, a silent exhibition, and the sharing of personal experiences. By blending these different approaches, we gradually crafted a safer space where everyone could share their stories and listen to others' in an enriching manner.

How are the “Others” represented nowadays? To answer this question, we first explored who are those others through artistic practices like collage and we deepen the topic through debates about real cases of missrepresentation on the media (the media coverage of the genocide of Rohingya’s and Palestinian' population, or the episodes of racial violent with the cases of Geoge Floyd and Nahel Merzouk; the social imaginary of migrats in Europe; or the problematic representation in social media of white people practicing voluntourism in the Global South).

We discussed good and bad practices when depicting social or political conflicts: telling personal stories through an agreed long-term coverage vs. dehumanization through depersonalization (for example, giving only numbers but not names, showing images of groups of people, talking differently about black and white migrants, using imprecise vocabulary). This allowed us to debate and come to an agreement on the terms to use, ensuring that everyone feels understood.

We also learned core concepts regarding racial representation such as blackface and yellowface, exoticization, tokenism, blind casting, racial profiling, colorism…. And we screened several “narratives of resistance”, audiovisual products (pictures, reportages, documentaries…) that have been made by the participants of the project themselves, another way to share a piece of everyone's experience and strengthen such a diverse group.

To get rid of all the negative inputs that we had explored the previous days, we made a session on utopian thinking, core to Rakonto’s values, to visualize how we are surrounded by dystopian audiovisual representations while we don’t have so many utopic references. A meditation on self-discovery and representation followed that reflection, and we spent a day and a half developing our own creative laboratory. The results were outstanding, demonstrating what the group has built over the past few days, both in terms of group cohesion and skills.

We explored our identities and rewrote our own stories, questioned our privileges, discussed personal stories of migration, or developed tools for self-care through diverse artisitc practices: photography, videomaking, performance, installation, interactive group dynamics, collage, etc.

The specific outcome of this project was an exhibition that took place in the multifunctional hall of Laroin’s municipality, located by the lake. It encompassed the artistic products created by the participants, which ranged from recorded personal testimonies and artistic interventions to a world map, to performances about migratory processes and the need for hope. The final result has been a powerful moment of exchange, which will forever be etched in memory.

We have created a document gathering all the creations made during our exhibition. Take the time to look, read, and understand what each individual or group has imagined. Each document includes a link to the YouTube video. It's your turn to watch and immerse yourself in the creative artistry! :)