Save the Date & News from WITH WINGS AND ROOTS (Newsletter)

Dear Friends, 

With several very eventful months behind us, we would love to share some updates and ask you to SAVE THE DATE for the launch of our interactive website, ReimagineBelonging.org, in New York on Saturday, September 19th.

Over the last few months we: 

• premiered the German-language version of our interactive website at a Launch Event in Berlin with 200 guests at the Heinrich Boell Foundation on May 5th.

• showcased a rough cut of the film to an intimate group of producers and distributors at DocsBarcelona film festival on May 26th & used the feedback to wrap up the edit in July

• received continued funding from the Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (EVZ) Foundation for our work training teachers in Germany to explore histories of migration and collective violence with their students using an anti-racist lens 

• received an “Active for Democracy and Tolerance” award from the Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance against Extremism and Violence

• Conducted workshops in Berlin, Detroit, The Hague, and Geneva, NY.  

  
  

SAVE THE DATE!

Mark your calendars for the launch of our interactive website Reimagine Belonging - September 19th from 5:30-8:30pm at The New School’s brand new Hoerle Lecture Hall and Event Cafe. Visitors will attend a panel discussion on the intersections of immigrant rights, racial justice, and visions of citizenship; explore an installation of our timelines of migration, citizenship, and belonging; and have the chance to share their own stories for the site. Our Berlin event was a huge success and we can’t wait to continue in New York. Please RSVP today!

The Film

The edit of the film has been an incredible process and is almost done. After taking the winter months off to work on our interactive website, we returned full force to the film this spring with new ideas and energy. We had the opportunity to present the rough cut at at the international documentary film festival DocsBarcelona, then got great feedback for the final push. Now our Seattle-based composer Alex Guy is working on a score, and after the final touches are complete, we hope to announce a premiere sometime soon! 

Workshops & Outreach

Leading up to the launch of our English-language site, we've led workshops for several key audiences to preview and try our new web-based tools. In May and June, we conducted workshops for youth from Austria, media activists at the the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, and human rights advocates at the Humanity in Action Conference in The Hague. This work will continue in 2015 as we prepare workshops for teachers in Seattle, and youth in Brooklyn this fall. We are thrilled that we received continued funding for the next ten months to conduct teacher trainings in cities across Germany supported by the EVZ foundation.

Prize for Democracy and Tolerance

In June we were honored to receive the “Active for Democracy and Tolerance” award from the Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance against Extremism and Violence for our short film Where are you ‘from’ from? We are thankful for this recognition and congratulate the other projects! We were also covered by various German media outlets, including Taz, FluxFM, and Deutsche Welle.

What's next?

In the following weeks we will be busy putting the finishing touches on the film, preparing for the New York launch, and developing curricula for an autumn full of workshops. We invite everyone to visit our website, enter into exchange and dialogue, or participate in an event! 

This year, UNHCR announced that we are living in a time with the highest number of refugees since WWII. This crisis of forced migration is international, but comes in parallel with right-wing political movements in the U.S., Germany, and across Europe invested in deepening nationalist ideologies. It reminds us that the transnational work we are doing to raise questions around belonging and exclusion is urgent. Thank you for being part of our efforts to Reimagine Belonging!

From New York, Berlin, Seattle, Esslingen and Athens - thanks for your support! The entire WITH WINGS AND ROOTS Team