“Migration is a present topic, but not a new history”

This sentence can be found on the website of the Immigrantmuseet in Farum, Denmark. This thought also served as a sort of starting point when preparing and realizing the “Along the route/track of EU migration museums…” project. As a result of political and social events from the last decade, we could observe an intensified movement of cultural institutions towards creating an offer including migrants not only as recipients and creators, but also as people co-creating the new vision of an inclusive narrative.
Many of the good practices that emerged during the realization of the project have brought forward especially positive effects. A deep analysis of these effects made it possible to identify repeating “success stories”, which worked out in different socio-economical-political contexts in the European Union. Being inspired by projects that actually influence social inclusion in different EU conditionings and realities is one of the goals of this project. The other is to share the gained knowledge.

Here’s a short catalogue of selected good practices:

Safe space – the functioning of migration museums and other cultural institutions as a friendly and safe space for meetings, cyclical activities (e.g. artistic, but also culinary, or learning new skills, e.g. linguistic) for the broadly defined local community (indigenous population, internal migrants, foreigners);

Going out/Expanding borders/Breaking walls – programming a part of the institution’s activities outside of its main headquarters, for example expanding to local urban community meeting spots with a seasonal offer;

Broader look at migrants – inclusion of second and third generations in the migrant narrative, and also people from local communities who have even a short experience of mobility, including repatriates;

Migrant museums as platforms of debate, talks on timeless values/the future – function of organizers and places of meetings and discussion for local communities (including foreigners), where a lot of attention is paid to the plurality of thoughts, views, perspectives; these institutions carry out a sort of “social consultations” concerning important social subjects, where everyone can speak, take part in a discussion, but also can initiate one, present a diversity of thoughts (departure from perceiving foreigners as only recipients, beneficiaries);

Handing over space for migrant creations, making space for narratives on the subject of migration, art, culture that are different from the receiving/admitting country – this makes it possible for the museums and cultural institutions to be perceived as their own spaces by people who have experienced other cultures and languages (they can identify with the spaces, recognize them as their own);
Inviting foreign communities to co-create narratives and the offers of migrations museums and cultural institutions – the concept of co-creators;

Involving gate keepers in the activities of cultural institutions, meaning introductory individuals who come from different cultures – foreign ambassadors of cultural institutions, migrant committees, cooperation with associations;

Clear message from migrant museums presenting migration as a part of national history – realization of projects strengthening the awareness of this fact (the difference between migrants and autochthons decreases, because mobility is embedded in the identity of all nations).