Our Homes: a Documentary born out of a BIP experience

Our project is a documentary titled "Our Homes." We are inspired by the 2024 CIVIS BIP we attended in Athens on "PostRacial Transmodernities: Afro-European Relations, Mediterranean Trajectories & Intercultural Reciprocities" lead by Prof. Stamatina Dimakopoulou and Prof. Mina Karavanta.

We have noticed that one often does not reflect on the concept of home until one experiences displacement. Whether due to migration, political upheaval, personal choices, or unforeseen circumstances, the idea of home becomes central when it is disrupted or lost.

Testimonies from Belgium, Germany, Greece and Switzerland

Using a collective approach, we aim to interview people from diverse backgrounds, nationalities, and cultures to share their thoughts on what home means to them. We will explore questions such as: What relationship do they have with the place they currently call home? Is home static, or does it evolve across time and space?

The documentary will include footage from Athens, Berlin, Brussels and Lausanne allowing people to share their personal stories and emotions about these urban spaces and how they navigate through them. We plan to screen the documentary in Brussels, Lausanne, and Athens for an audience of students, academics, and local communities.

We will use our project as a way to reflect together on notions of belonging, migration, hospitality and identity. Our goal is not only to document these narratives but also to spark a broader conversation about our affiliation with the spaces we occupy or have occupied.

Building Bridges: Meet the Students Behind Our Homes

This project is the combined effort of four students from different countries and backgrounds, who chose to share their knowledge and skills to build bridges between communities with respect for diversity of perspectives.

We hope through the screenings and the student-local community discussions, our audience will join us on this journey to better understand our shared spaces and strengthen our communities"

The creative process

The documentary will be produced from April to July.
The screening events and the discussion with the students, actors of the civil society and the academia will take place in Athens, Brussels and Lausanne in September and October 2025. The documentary will be also available online to the CIVIS community.

The project is primarily addressed to the student and staff members of the universities of the CIVIS Alliance. The screening events will be the opportunity to welcome also the actors of civil society and other communities our universities are part of.

If you wish to contact us for information or to share a reflection, send us an email at: ourhomesproject@gmail.com

Aissa Mboup, Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD)

Aissa Mboup
Aissa is a Senegalese scholar from Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), Dakar. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the Institute of Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University of Berlin. Her research areas are feminism, gender and migration. She holds an MA degree in African and Postcolonial Studies from UCAD.

I look at the notion of home through hybridity, and how liminal space is a good place to live for some while it’s an out-of-place for others”.

Cinthia Lopes Henriques, University of Lausanne (UNIL)

Cinthia is a master’s student in Digital Humanities at the University of Lausanne, with a background in journalism. Her academic and professional path has focused on media, art, communication, and politics, with a particular interest in how the digital world shapes society.

Having experienced migration first-hand, I am especially drawn to exploring how movement, identity, and belonging are expressed through media and the arts”.

Caterina Stamou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA)

Caterina is a PhD candidate in the Department of English of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. Her research interests include contemporary poetics and aesthetics, cultural studies as well as feminist and decolonial scholarship.

I am interested in the dialogues between theory, lived experience and collaborative practices that “Our Homes” creative project grapples with, highlighting how these questions emerge transnationally both in academic and non academic contexts".

David Baranyeretse, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

David is a master’s student in Labour Sciences at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) with an interest in migration, postcolonial and Afro-European relations developed through divers CIVIS programmes and civil actions. He was born in Rwanda and grew up in Belgium. His upbringing in both cultures drives his curiosity in people connectivity.

In these challenging and changing times, a better understanding of how, why and when does a space and time we occupy become a Home, could be key to understand and strengthening our communities and societies”.