The telematic performance and the VR films will be based on real life stories of migrants and their left-behind families in Romania, Portugal and Spain. These will be identified by the interview teams in each country using several methods. The “chain of connections” approach will be a helpful tool, meaning that the project teams will get in touch with co-nationals they know who are living in Spain and Portugal, who will then lead the interview teams to the wider diaspora. At the same time, we will approach journalists of diaspora publications to lead us to other migrants they know or they have already interviewed. Moreover, we could reach these communities with the help of the local public administration in Buzău, Murcia and Lousada and with the help of associations dedicated to migrants. We will also organize open interview sessions where people can drop in and share their stories – these will be popularized via Facebook groups such as “Romanians in Spain” and “Romanians in Portugal”.
The team in Spain will take interviews of Romanian and Portuguese immigrants in the region of Murcia, while the Portuguese and Romanian teams will interview left-behind families of migrants in Spain. These interviews will be recorded using video, sound and/or writing, depending on the interviewee’s degree of comfort with recording media.
The Artistic Director and Associate Director will select the most interesting interviews as they receive them from the interview teams and will use them as sources of inspiration for the performance script. The most interesting interview transcriptions will be translated into English and uploaded in bilingual version on this website. The collection will thus be available to people worldwide and will also facilitate the writing of the performance text and film scripts.