Junaid and Lola "Tandemians 4evah" Photo by Vladislav Andrejević SOKAK: a project on diversity and curiosity Throughout their Tandem Shaml collaboration, Junaid Sarieddeen (Zoukak Theatre Company & Cultural Association, Beirut) and Lola Joksimović (Center for Cultural decontamination, Belgrade) have been working on the project Gilgamesh and the quest for immortality dealing with issues around migration and integration of different communities. They are following up on the creative work they did throughout their Tandem collaboration with the workshop: Transfiguration. We, Europeans, are supposed to look at Europe through the eyes of those who travel to it, so they can remind us of the values that we have forgotten, but most of all, the solidarity of its citizens. The issues around migration – the suspended lives of the people that have no choice, the abuse and the suffering – won’t change right away just because a couple of artists in Serbia and Lebanon worked on a project together. Culture and art help us feel and think differently about circumstances, about our own attitudes and personal experiences, it motivates us to make different choices in the future, without telling us what the difference should be. It brings us friendship, ideas, resources and creativity, and they feed each other, giving us tools to better understand and express these many issues. Strong statements which bring the voice back to these traumatised people overpower the words of fear and hate through which political tensions and manipulations are developed. sloWalk. Photo by Vladislav Andrejević The integration of two communities, ‘ours’ and that of ‘the migrants’, is a two-way street, and participatory art presents opportunities to create social cohesion, based on the assumption that social groups within a society fragmented by politics of identities made through nationality, religion and language, may build relations through gradual emancipation of the differences built through solidarity, in a mutual social struggle for development and a better everyday life. These questions and concerns stand at the core of “Sokak – A project about difference and curiosity”. A recent chapter of the project was the workshop “Cultural faces of the Balkans – Transfigurations”, led by Junaid Sarieddeen from Zoukak Theatre Company and hosted by the Center for cultural decontamination during 5 days, including 24 participants from Afghanistan, Austria, Syria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran and Serbia. You can watch a video from the workshop below: Workshop participants: Donya Kashkooly, Nazif Aharad, Barbara Skala – Stojanović, Nasib Behvoz, Emran Babrakkhil, Fawad Ahmadi, Zakiullah Sherzadullah, Jovana Ostojić, Nadeem Noori, Kristina Milanović, Asif Bahar, Vanja Žikić, Hashmatallah Momand, Darya Kashkooly, Aras Majdidin, Aleksandar Obradović, Mohamad Omar, Ahmad Abas, Masha Moghadam, Raman Ose, Rayan Alatrash, Vivien Kurtović, Nejrevan Omar, Farid Ahmad Filming: Vladislav Andrejević Editing: Nataša Pavlović