Paper Short Abstract:

This paper introduces ‘Migration Songs,’ a project developed by Marieke Slovin Lewis and Sarah Reader Harris. Lewis and Harris volunteered from January 2017 through March 2020 to offer weekly poetry and songwriting sessions for residents of the center to create literature and music from their migration stories. They composed poetry and music in 11 languages with participants from 18 countries. The project culminated in a collaborative publication called ‘On the Move: Poems and Songs of Migration’ (Lewis, Harris, and Residents, 2020). This work represents a way that participatory art can be employed to build connection, community, inclusion, and a sense of belonging for people creating a new life. Within the context of human rights, this project became a way to promote recognition, participation, and communication for asylum seekers, whose voices are often missing from migration narratives.

Paper Abstract:

On a winter day in Brussels, an Armenian woman wrote a phrase in her mother tongue on a sheet of paper taped to a brick wall. Her words translated into English as “let the smile always be independent of nationality.” We wrote a song together about the importance of creating a sense of belonging and community that is free from the limitations of xenophobia, borders, and nationalities. This song was one of dozens I co-created with asylum seekers on Monday afternoons at the Fedasil Arrival Centre in a project that came to be called “Migration Songs,” which I developed with poet and writer Sarah Reader Harris. We volunteered together for several years, offering weekly poetry and songwriting sessions where we worked collaboratively with residents of the center to compose songs from their migration stories. Our goal was to create a welcoming space where residents could meet as equals, share migration and life stories, and create music together. We also posted a poetry wall with poems in several languages. In this paper, I will illustrate how these sessions became a way to create a sense of inclusion and belonging within this liminal existence, a space where traditional narratives around migration, nationalism, and what it means to be human can be reimagined and rewritten. Within the context of human rights, this project became a way to promote recognition, participation, and communication for asylum seekers, whose voices are often missing from migration narratives.