Learning Lab: The Politics of Hospitality and the Refuge City

Alketa-1-750x1024Learning Lab takes its inspiration from artist Alketa Xhafa Mripa’s installation Refugees Welcome, which will be located in front of the York Minster from 11- 4:00 pm on Saturday 17th June.

Mripa is traveling around the UK with a Luton tail lift van, called Refugees Welcome, to engage people in everyday conversations about ‘welcome’. She performs her memories of being warmly welcomed as a refugee from Kosovo in the late 1990s as a prompt for conversations. Is this performance, agitprop, site-specic installation or activism? Alketa embraces all these labels and more!

The Politics of Hospitality and the Refuge City comprises a series of films, a public conversation with Mripa and a panel discussion about the role of arts and culture in opening up spaces for civic action, the values of everyday human rights and urban sanctuary.

Contributors include among others: Maggie O’Neill (Sociology – University of York), Simon Parker (Refugee Action York and Politics – University of York), Alice Nah (Centre for Applied Human Rights – University of York), Jan Haaken (Portland State University), Almir Koldzic, Áine O’Brien, Nelli Stavropoulou, Alketa Xhafa Mripa (Counterpoints Arts), Emily Riddle (Arthouse, Wakefield), Emine Surbe (York Mosque) and Paul Wordsworth (City of Sanctuary, York).

Learning Lab also includes a poster display and exhibition produced by students from the Departments of Politics, History, English and Related Studies and Economics, University of York. The Exhibition will be open and will include a reception from 5.00 – 5:30 pm.

Saturday 17th June

Refugees Welcome installation: 11.00-4.00pm, York Minster

Exhibition and drinks reception: 5.00 – 5.30pm, King’s Manor Common Room

Learning Lab on The Politics of Hospitality and the Refuge City: 5.30 -7.15pm, King’s Manor Huntington Room

York Learning Lab Poster Invitation

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