The project

Project's Originality

We propose a switch from the classical image of the South-Eastern Europe as a cultural “Babel Tower” to a more balanced image in which the cultural model of cohabitation must be taken into consideration.
The anthropological research is showed by “visual witnesses” as artistic elements with high visual impact.
The results of the anthropological research are presented in the artistic form of short-film and photography.
Three mixed communities are presented in three different social and political contexts.
In each of these three countries, the image of the two communities living together is centered on the life stories of the mixed families.

Project's main goal

At policy level in the cultural sector our project is meant to underline the following messages:
•the cultural identity is a open and trans-national concept;
•the cultural identity is a dynamic concept which is permanently constructed;
•the main mechanism of creating the cultural identity is the collaboration between different cultures;
•the traditions are cultural products of collaboration between different cultures.
All these messages mentioned above are meant to persuade the policymakers in order to underline the intercultural dimension of national traditions, and in order to promote the interethnic cohabitation within cultural public policy.

Project's short and long term objectives
Short term objectives
•to identify in the South-Eastern Europe the way in which the Turkish and autochthon cultural space generate a culture of cohabitation;
•to promote the model of cultural exchange offered by the mixed communities;
•to increase the visibility and importance of the culture cohabitation inside the Balkans;
•to increase the mixed communities’ visibility as reference of interethnic cohabitation at the European scale.
Long term objectives
Throughout the project we intend:
•to promote specific examples of “good practice” in what regards the interethnic cohabitation (all over Europe);
•to promote cultural patterns thorough which interethnic communities succeeded to overcome major social issues in (this particular part of) Europe;
•to generate a precedent for similar cultural projects in the European regions with significant mixed communities;
•to increase the visibility of the mixed cultures on an European level as bench-marks of the construction of the European cultural unitary identity.