The Dome Event 2016

The DOME EVENT is the annual big scale event of the DOME PROJECT. Each year, it introduces a different socio-political priority issue with the aim to establish a space for awareness, networking, knowledge exchange and visibility through its interdisciplinary activities. The DOME EVENT 2016 focused on the refugee issue, highlighting and promoting inspiring stories and solidarity initiatives of people and organisations in Europe and Middle East via five strategically organized actions.

PROGRAMME

DOME Forum: Solidarity With/By the Refugees
Location: Goethe Institut Athen

The 1st International Forum on the Refugee Issue “Solidarity With/By the Refugees” brings together organizations and informal groups from across Europe and Middle East who are actively engaged in the refugee issue through applied solidarity actions.
Having identified common needs and challenges in different socio-cultural contexts, the Forum aims to establish a space for networking, critical dialogue and exchange of good practices among diverse solidarity initiatives that work in the following, often overlapping fields:

Panel 1/ Humanitarian emergencies / Radical solidarity across borders
PANEL 2/ Human rights advocacy / Monitoring, awareness and legal support
PANEL 3/ Tackling the state of exception / Work and education practices
PANEL 4/ Bridges of co-existence / Culture, community and social life

DOME Experience : Traces
Location: Bageion Hotel, Athens Biennale

What does refugee crisis mean? How do we perceive what we experience as humans, as humanity, and how will it be inscribed on our collective memory in 5, 10, 100 years from now?
Through a hybrid mixture of images, sounds, stories, testimonies, documents and real people, which follows the actual traces of the refugee route (countries of origin, transit countries, destination countries and all the borders in between) a unique experience is formed, combining a free tour within a very distinct museum with the immediacy of a theatre performance and the power of a documentary.
This tour is an attempt for a collective documentation of the contemporary refugee experience through the eyes of the people who inhabit, momentarily, temporarily or permanently, and from different positions, different parts of the refugee journey.
This experience comes to life in the premises of an underused hotel, a space that captures and accumulates the aura and the stories of its tenants, current and past.
In this symbolic space, in its empty shells/rooms, fragments and places of the refugee journey come to life. In there, besides the exhibits-documents such as personal objects, photos, diaries and testimonies, we meet people in their actual role – people who experience and affect a historical moment, a historical transition, at the time of its formation, while it is happening.

Dome Discussion: A Home to Share
Location: National Theatre, Experimental Stage -1

A Home to Share is an open talk on the experience of home-sharing between local hosts and refugees in the framework of Refugees Welcome Initiative. Refugees Welcome started in Germany and is currently expanding in many other countries (Austria, Greece, Spain, Sweden, Poland, Italy, Portugal, The Netherlands etc). Refugees Welcome supports the idea of accommodating refugees in private homes through flat-sharing instead of camps in order to ease the process of resettlement.
Α mixed family, consisting of both locals and refugees are invited to Athens to share their experience and discuss with the audience, with the aim to provide a vivid example of a culture of welcoming and coexistence, dissolve any doubts or misconceptions and encourage more people to join this initiative.

DOME Feast: Sounds and Flavours
Location: Technopolis City of Athens

Reflecting the Dome Event’s culture of action, participation and inclusion, its closing event invites refugees from the refugee shelter of Elaionas, along with all partners, participants, guests and audience of the Dome Event, to join a community cooking and eating at Technopolis cultural space and enjoy a world-music dj gig. People of different nationalities and backgrounds will come together to celebrate the closing of the Dome Event, exchange, enjoy and set up our next appointment!