Open Call for short stories II phase — New Deadline 15th June
“Where are you from?” is the project’s name that deals with migration, queerness and visibility.
It consists of several phases, and we (The WedMi Collective and Natalia Gurova) want to develop it further.
In the beginning, we wanted to publish a book with texts that will answer the question that every migrant person has to face: “Where are you from?”. The idea of this book appeared after long discussions of our migrant experience and was prompted by the desire to answer this question other than “I am from …”.
We made the first step and announced the open Call for short stories where the authors are dealing with the question “Where are you from?”. While working on it, we realized that it would be great to expand our initial idea and give more space to the authors and make the idea more present and visible.
So, we still collect the stories but now also would like to extend the Call a bit longer and propose authors think together with us if they would like to visualize some of the parts from the texts in the public space.
Stand 129 / Kulturhaus Brotfabrik selected our project. It means that we will get a room in the public space (10. district in Vienna) to perform/reconstruct/emphasize the texts we had already collected and those we will collect during extended Open Call.
Why are we doing it?
The WEdMi Collective (Women, Education, Migration) and artist Natalia Gurova is a collective of queer migrant feminists. We invite queer authors with migrant experience who want to share their story of moving to Vienna and become more visible. We see this project as an opportunity for queer migrants to be heard.
What are we looking for?
A lively, emotional, personal story is always an asset. We will be happy to get diaries, sketches, poems, stories of any genre that help understand your queer migrant encounter with Vienna. How does the city smell for you? What was the biggest surprise? The biggest disappointment? The tastiest food or drink, the warmest meeting? The weirdest rule? The most exciting place? (put your questions in here).
Share with the audience all the discoveries and experiences, problems and achievements that come along with migration, all the stories about places in Vienna that were/are essential for you. Sites are incredibly crucial because we would like to map and activate the city with your contributions.
How are we going to do it?
You can send your text in any language that is comfortable for you. Therefore, the collection of texts will be distributed on a non-commercial basis.
- We are planning to make a book from the selected stories,
- to organize reading in the public spaces in the city,
- to create a map of Vienna based on the stories mentioned in the book,
- to distribute books,
- to organize an event that will help meet each other, share stories, and spend excellent time together.
Technical requirements
Please send your texts with a maximum of 5 printed pages DIN A4 in doc (x) format by 15.06.2021. Please send your text in doc (no more than 5 MB).
You can send texts not only in German or English but also in your first language.
If you have any questions about the Open Call or our further plan, please write us an email: vereinwedmi@gmail.com
Sincerely yours,
WedMi and Natalia Gurova