The goal of the project is to curate a robust digital repository of #ENDSARS2020 related experiences. But even more, like the slogan Soro Soke, this project aims to offer a platform to a few who wish to emotively voice out lingering concerns, unsaid stories, pent-up agitations, and bitter-sweet memories. In keeping with these goals, the project will collect the personalized narratives of about fifteen Nigerian creatives and compile them into a singular cohesive video of those shared experiences that will then be showcased during a forum and made accessible online to those whom the events of #ENDSARS2020 resonate with.

Organized by Oluwafunmilayo Miriam Akinpelu, Central European University student

Listening as Doorways to Futures is a counter-intellectual art piece that resists recent cultural and sociological claims that humanity is experiencing the ‘End of Imagination.’ Participants from both within and outside the Central European University (CEU) community were invited to attend a two-part workshop by artist Chloe Kelly on how sound can be used as a tool for imagination. Chloe presented new ways of perceiving the local environment, equipping the participants with a disposition helpful for discovering doorways to futures. This workshop also facilitated discussion of sound as fluid, nonrational, and a medium which creates commonality. Participants were then asked to record their environments over the course of two weeks. The second part of the workshop was to reflect on common themes and stories among the recordings, and how they have shaped our imagination. Recordings took place with each participant’s own smartphone or zoom recorder which were available in Vienna and Budapest. Instruction on how to use the zoom recorders was provided. Based on the reflections from the second workshop, audio specialist Thomas Aichinger supported the postproduction of a sound collage.

Organized by Julian Willming, Central European University

Project contributors:

Chloe Kelly, artist

Thomas Aichinger, audio specialist

In 2021, the Central European University (CEU) community was highly distributed – in addition to operating from two campuses, many students and faculty were unable to share common spaces, or were working from their home countries. This initiative was an experimental venture to explore avenues for community-building around sustainability initiatives, and drew on a diverse toolkit adapted from the environmental humanities for this purpose.

The “virtual ecovillage” is a hybrid (synchronous/asynchronous) event model that kicked off with a series of two participatory mapping workshops to orient students to the project and to elicit connections between participants. The results of this workshop were recorded and compiled in a digital art project that was presented at the RECOMS-ITN Spaces of Possibility Conference in early June in (virtual) Brussels, exploring the possibilities of “virtual sustainable communities” in university settings. This was followed up with the creation and publication of a digital resource library (hosted on Discord), providing space for students to share and learn sustainability skills - including zero-waste cooking, composting, saving seeds, growing food, and more. Students were introduced to digital tools that they can use to explore further skills in their home cities (for example, for aging and wildlife identification through the National Geographic “SEEK” app). Finally, a series of “virtual visits” to integrated farms and intentional communities (one in the UK, the other in Mexico) introduced students to players in the sustainability community, and potentially built connections for future research.

Organized by Olea Morris, Central European University

Student Project Leader: Jefferson R. Mendez, Central European University (CEU)

CEU Mentor: Prof. Istvan Rev, Director, Open Society Archives

This multimedia project is based on graduate student Luka Gotsiridze’s capstone thesis topic for the M.A. degree at Central European University (CEU). It deals with the issues surrounding ‘passport privilege’ and the passport-based discrimination against third-country nationals. Luka believes that posing different requirements to individuals based on their nationality amounts to discrimination. However, the current political affairs of the world tend to disregard this issue. For instance, citizens of developing countries enjoy some privileges, namely - less restrictive movement across borders and easier procedures for obtaining work permits. On the other hand, third-country nationals have to go through different, more complicated processes. Such political borders and attitudes towards third-country nationals work against the ongoing process of globalization, and this is counterproductive for establishing an open society where human rights are protected universally. While his capstone thesis explores the topic through discussing the issues related to freedom of movement and race discrimination, it is designed to serve as a multimedia supplement that would highlight this issue to wider audiences through storytelling and artistic expression. The project included posters hung in public spaces such as the Underground Station in Vienna, as well as a podcast with audio-based stories of individuals who have been discriminated against due to their nationality. The posters included QR codes which linked to the podcast to spread awareness.

Organized by Luka Gotsiridze, Central European University M.A. student