A performance by Gigacircus Réel (France)
What does it mean to walk in solidarity? How can listening become an act of belonging?
Migrating Voices is a participatory performance that invites participants into an embodied encounter with the stories of people forced to migrate by war, famine and the climate crisis. The journey begins by listening to the voices of those who walk today in search of safety, alongside the testimonies of volunteers who accompany them from dawn to dusk, carrying water across deserts, offering care and sustaining hope.
Participants are then invited to take part in a simple ritual of circular walking, transforming listening into a collective gesture of resilience and solidarity. In the final sequence, the performer’s footsteps intertwine with the words of a poet, allowing movement and language to merge into a living poem born through walking.
Combining sound, mobile devices, performance, poetry, remote walking and collective participation, Migrating Voices creates a space for reflection on displacement, hospitality and the enduring human capacity for hope.
Walking Arts & Local Communities (WALC) is an artistic cooperation project, co-funded by the European Union, Creative Europe, starting in January 2024 for four years. With seven partners from five countries, WALC establishes an International Center for Artistic Research and Practice of Walking Arts, in Prespa, Greece, at the border with Albania and North Macedonia, backed up by an online counterpart in the format of a digital platform for walking arts.
WALC builds on the previous work of hundreds of artists and researchers already practicing Walking Arts as a collaborative medium, and having met at the significant previous walking arts events and encounters in Greece, Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, and during online activities at walk · listen · create.
We acknowledge the support of the EU Creative Europe Cooperation grant program in the framework of the European project WALC (Walking Arts and Local Community).
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
| Migrating Voices |
Related
Submissions – Performativity(ies) of Memory(ies) Interdisciplinary Conference 2026
Abstract submission deadline 15 July 2026 Recommended topics: Shared memory of experiences and knowledge Participatory research and practice as testimony of (the) memory Community-generated memory … Source: Submissions – Performativity(ies) of Memory(ies) Interdisciplinary Conference 2026
• After the Walk
Made of Walking Prosperpolder and the Future of Walking Arts Walking After the Walk The expression walking arts has become surprisingly familiar. Over the past two decades it has entered conferences, books, festivals, university programmes and European projects. It has proved useful because it brought together a remarkable diversity of practices that had previously remained
• Invitation to Backwards Walkings
We meet and talk just a bit about this instruction that seems to have been hidden in plain sight for some centuries (during which it has been valued as figurative, rather than being taken literally) then walk backwards for a while, together in time and separately in space, then meet again for lunch together.
You must be logged in to post a comment.