Seferihisar Bay / Izmir. Photo by Filiz Izem Yasin CAMP EUROPE Marilli Mastrantoni, Director of Entropia Theater (Greece) brings us moving images and reflections from Camp Europe, an international project exploring current bio-politics and the refugee crisis in relation to the function of Concentration Camps in historically crucial periods. This story focuses on a residency in Izmir organised in collaboration with their local partner Açık Stüdyo and its Artistic Director, Şafak Ersözlü. Both Tandem alumni will meet again in May, with support from the Tandem Mobility Grant. Photo by Marilli Mastrantoni With ENTROPIA Ensemble, we launched the International Project CAMP EUROPE, which explores the refugee and migratory crisis from a different perspective, usually excluded from the public discourse: it attempts to investigate the function of concentration camps in historically crucial periods and their relationship to the current bio-political agenda. Seferihisar Bay / İzmir. Photo by Filiz Izem Yasin Through a comparative study of historical examples, we discuss periods of refugee flows and displacements in the 20th century Europe, as well as those power structures that actively separate “political beings” (i.e. citizens) from “bare life” (bodies), and how the political body transforms into a criminal one, by subjecting the population to a state of permanent suspicion and surveillance. Shadows over the Mediterranean. Photo by Tsambika Fesaki We address issues regarding the body, its significance and attitudes in conditions of incarceration, and analyze also the “state of exception”, whose camp is its obvious and par excellence place of enforcement, in an effort to awaken collective memory and to stimulate its subsequent critical projection into the present, thus shifting the focus of our attention from the passivity of the feeling of compassion towards the distressed “moving” populations to our political and moral responsibilities towards them, and the gravity and consequences that the legalization and normalization of this state of exception or emergency could bring about to our societies. The Project develops through research and residencies in Berlin, Budapest, Izmir and Athens in collaboration with local institutions and artists, building up towards the premiere in Athens in May 2018 of the homonymous interdisciplinary transnational performance. With the support of Tandem Network Mobility Grants, fellow Tandemian Şafak Ersözlü will join us in the final residency and rehearsals in Athens and participate in the cross-cultural performance between 9 and 15 May. During our Residency in Izmir, we researched the Project’s thematology within the local context, visited spaces of historical significance, as well as today’s host centres and neighbourhoods mainly inhabited by Syrian refugees and other migrants, since Turkey is the first host country, and Izmir in particular is an entrance port to Europe. Workshop. Photo by Filiz Izem Yasin Our intensive workshop concluded with a successful performance-presentation of its outcome to the local public as a work-in-progress.