New cities join ”Europe at Home”

New cities join ”Europe at Home” project and show by photography and literature how they lived social isolation

The Covid-19 pandemic on European cities through the perspective of 40 artists

Cluj (Romania), Maribor (Slovenia), Hildesheim (Germany), Pécs (Hungary), Plungè (Lithuania) and Ptuj (Slovenia) – these are the cities that recently joined “Europe at Home” project, each selecting a photographer and a literary artist to portray the experience of social isolation as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. With these cities joining the project, the online exhibition “Europe at Home” now counts with 20 cities and 40 artists.

Faced with the scenario of a stopped Europe, where a significant part of the population closed itself at home, the Faro2027 team, responsible for this city’s candidacy to European Capital of Culture, decided to challenge several European cities to portray the experience of this unprecedented moment in our recent history through the lens of a photographer and the words of a literary author. The response was immediate and enthusiastic and cities quickly came together to highlight how Europe is so identical even assuming its differences.

Each city invited a photographer and a literary author and the result of these works are displayed on europeathome.eu, where the visitor can access not only the artworks but also information on each city involved, as well as short biographies of each artist. The platform is very user friendly, offering navigation through a map or menus by city, photographer and literary artist. The project includes cities that place culture as one of their main development axis, and the only condition for participation is the identification with the motto of the project by the entities that represent each city and by the artists selected by them.

“Europe at Home” aims to reflect and decode this “new reality” that we are living, creating a memory based on an artistic vision, but mainly it aims to reflect on the fact that Europe, and particularly the European Union, face a dangerous irony on the dilution of its borders. With efforts focused on combating the virus Covid-19, the dimension and function of what is the largest community of prosperity, peace and development in the world, is being challenged. Will we be able to reset and turn towards each other, holding uncertainty together in a creative and life-affirming way?

From everywhere we get examples of artists helping us bursting into new realities. One of the first inspirations for “Europe At Home” was the photographer Gabija Vainiutė, from the city of Kaunas, whose work is also featured on “Europe at Home” website.

Although many of the cities featured in the launching phase are related to the European Capital of Culture title, “Europe at Home” aims to be an open movement seeking to embrace any city in Europe and any of its artists and citizens. In order to accomplish this, the project invites Europeans to share their experiences during this time of emergency by sharing – in public profiles on social media – photos and videos with the #europeathome hashtag. A compilation of these images can be seen on the homepage of the project’s website.

Now you just need to click europeathome.eu and get to know more about these different European cities and their artistic perspective, that can be seen and read, on this particular moment in our history that was lived “at home”.

For more information, see the full announcement below and visit the website: www.europeathome.eu