THE STORY IN MUSIC
Goodnight, homeland
A group of people in Lesvos share stories orally transmitted by their ancestors, about surviving traumas and use them to create a bond. In doing so, they unconsciously project the blueprint for a new geography of affect.
And still they wonder (Fortress down)
Capitalism came and had your eyes. An ungovernable crisis is overtaking Nation-States worldwide and Fortress Europe starts to dismantle the Union in favor of democratic confederalism.
If Return is not an option
The overcrowding in Lesvos is unbearable, transformed from an island in the Mediterranean archipelago into a prison and then into the biggest refugee camp of the planet. The group of people sharing stories in the beginning consider leaving the island. But where to go if all around seems still to be unwelcoming and politically old fashioned?
The future is not as it used to be
Still in Lesvos, a flashback from the first generation of refugees and activists. A refugee from the middle-east asks an activist from Europe: “… where would you go if you had to escape and ask for political asylum?” – “I really don’t know, the world is not enough nowadays. My heart says Palestine but Palestine is occupied”, when a Romani from the northern lands intervenes: “to Svalbard. I would move to Svalbard. Citizenship has no meaning there”.
Xenos
Present time. Formed by hundreds of people, the group decides to hijack a ship from the harbour of Mytilene and move in the direction of the northern lands of (former) Europe. Full of uncertainty, they look into each other’s eyes and realize they are strangers to one another.
As a wandering consortium
Going from harbour to harbour in Tripoli, Catania, Alghero and Marseille several people abandon the trip by landing and find their way back to the origins. The majority stay aboard while other people from Africa and Europe join them to continue the journey, finding new motivation in the spirit of sister/brotherhood built along the way. They start envisioning a form of travel that could bring forth a new way to consider co-existence.
Analog skeletons in digital closets
Some travelers share their experience in political theory, suggesting that in the last decades a lot of organizations built online archives and atlases. These archives could be a knowledge-base or toolbox to draw on for rebuilding the future.
A flexible now
Attracted by the magnificence of the northern seas, the natural phenomena and the visual description of Lapland that Carl Linnaeus generated in 1732 – as recalled by the tales of a traveler – the ship finally heads to Svalbard, where people disembark and no passport is requested.
Unhoming
Here comes a conundrum. How to reshape co-living, after all is said and done, after the old is declared as failure and is bankrupt? The most epic assembly takes place and people start again from where the travel had begun: sharing stories from the future.
