Project
Over a period of half a year, more than seventy migrants took part
in oral history workshops where they discussed their own life stories.
They came to Switzerland from Italy, Germany, Hungary, Turkey and
former Yugoslavia. Swiss people who moved from remote mountain regions
to urban centres in the forties and fifties also took part.
In another workshop, children from European and overseas countries
dealt with their experiences of migration, too.
At the end of 1999, as part of an intercultural exhibition at the
Design Museum (Museum für Gestaltung) in Zurich, the memories of
immigrants and internal migrants, together with contemporary documents
were presented. The exhibition was brought closer to various groups of
visitors by guides and a supporting programme. For the first time, a
view of the rich culture and experience of migration in Switzerland
which incorporated the perspective of contemporary witnesses was made
available to the public.
A reduced version of the exhibition was on display at 24 locations in
German-speaking Switzerland in the form of a video installation from
2001 to 2003. “Here and Away. Living in Two Worlds” helped to stimulate
diverse intercultural exchange events in schools and at regional and
local cultural centres. A total of over 20,000 people visited the
exhibition.
The video installation has been complemented by a book and a video, published by Limmat Verlag of Zurich. Both
are available in bookshops. They can also, along with further
audiovisual material and documents from the oral history workshops and
the exhibition, be borrowed or viewed on site at the Swiss Social
Archive in Zurich.
Project development 1998 - 2004:
Final Report,
2004 (PDF)
Overall project concept and implementation:
Travelling exhibition and video documentation partners:
bkf architects, Sabine Fischer, Frank Hyde-Antwi, Thomas O. Maurer,
Jolanda Piniel und Lukas Rüegg