Negotiating “Home” Borders: Creative Processes Hosting Syrian and Palestinian Syrian Artists in Europe

Abstract

Since 2015, hundreds of artists have joined the migrating masses from the Arab region with support from various international channels. Solidarity within the European performing arts scenes provided frameworks for artists’ cultural participation, which transfused new socio-cultural implications on their subjectivities. This paper examines how, in the case of Syrian and Palestinian Syrian artists’ engagement in creative processes at the European performing institutions, these processes influenced their home-making experiences. By using a grounded approach, this paper draws insights from an observed creative process within a professional theatre production in Germany, and an artist’s personal experience of involvement in a creative process in France. The paper addresses the implications of such processes for citizenship and the integration of artists in the realm of migration.