Freedom, Rights and Mobility Elephant (FRAME)

FRAME will use creative methods to foster a different vision of migrant mobilities across the Mediterranean, bringing the findings of the MADAR project to new audiences in the centre of Europe to shape polices and shift perspectives.

Context: Across the Maghreb (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya), Europe, and beyond, migration continues to be a highly contentious issue, recently mobilised by the Tunisian President and in elections to the European parliament. Civil society organisations, activists and researchers highlighted hostile migration politics and their nefarious consequences, notably the steadily rising number of deaths caused by violent border measures. Policies and practices foster a world where the ability to freely circulate and settle is often denied to racialised migrants portrayed as unwelcome villains. Rising xenophobia and racism are illustrated by the prevalence of anti-migration far-right tropes in public discourses on both sides of the Mediterranean (in north Africa and Southern Europe). FRAME, builds on established MADAR collaborations across countries (Morocco Algeria, Tunisia and the UK), sectors and disciplines. This follow-on project takes advantage of new, unpredictable opportunities for impact; it enhances and widens MADAR Network-Plus' benefits beyond its original objectives for new academic and non-academic beneficiaries.

Challenge: Crisis-focused debates about migration peddle dehistoricizing and depoliticizing tropes which obscure the responsibilities of state-actors collaborating in border regimes that stoke anti-immigration sentiments and violence, increase vulnerabilities, and infringe on migrants' rights. In contrast, FRAME revolves around an imposing, life-size elephant-shaped sculpture that will act as both a representation and advocate for another vision of mobility challenging dominant discourses and practices that foster the exclusion of the global majority, and highlighting continuities and ruptures between the Maghreb and Europe.

In reappropriating the ubiquitous migrants-as-animals imagery in anti-immigration rhetoric, the elephant catalyses creative engagements. Informed by quantitative and qualitative research findings from MADAR, FRAME aims to: a) transform MADAR's impact in shifting opinions and sparking further policy debates about migration through the use of arts; b) address the ongoing escalation of xenophobic and racist violence targeting migrants by foregrounding connections between the Maghreb and Europe in hostile migration politics. FRAME brings a lifesize elephant sculpture from Morocco to Brussels - de facto EU capital - where it will be at the heart of live performances and workshops in the city before returning to Casablanca as a permanent public sculpture. FRAME has 3 interlinked, challenge-driven, impactful objectives:

Generate discussions among the general public on discrimination, violent bordering regimes, and migrants' rights, through open-space, interactive performances;
Engage key stakeholders to influence policy affecting migration in the Maghreb and beyond;
Build lasting legacies based on the elephant and its journey to shape public understandings of discrimination and violence beyond the project's lifecycle.
FRAME includes 3 Work Packages, directly mapped to its 3 Objectives and corresponding Outputs (public performances; workshops; documentary; exhibition). FRAME demonstrates tangible potential for impact by raising awareness, empowering communities, and shaping policies across Europe and the Maghreb. It will challenge European decision-makers and public opinion by exposing the violence of border regimes.