I travelled to the YEUF poject cross-border event in Thionville, a small French town on the border with Luxembourg and Germany. The event included an art exhibition in which some of my work was included, a round table discussion and a concert.
The event was organised by the Collectif Pour un Service Civique Européen for the ECYP alumni network's YEUF project, for which I am working as the communications consultant. We are mobilising young voters for the EU elections, which take place in June 2024. At the event, I filmed an interview with the organiser and footage for a documentary about the project as well as capturing content for social media. Since the event was adopting a very creative approach to voter mobilisation, they also invited me to contribute some artworks to the exhibition and to perform at the concert.
Since the budget was too low to manage transportation and insurance for original artworks, the artworks in the exhibition were submitted digitally and printed and framed for the display at Hall Beffroi, the town's 19th century Belfry. They include 6 of my artworks (fom left to right and top to bottom); European Integration I, European Integration II, Tapestry of Europe, European Integration III, Patchwork Quilt of Europe, Portraits of 27 Brexiles.
I performed two songs which matched the tone of the event; 'We Are Europe' which has the chorus in English, French and German (perfect for this cross-border event) and 'Always On the Road' which is a song about the value of travel. After the event, several people came up to me and said how much they liked my lyrics and one woman even said I had a "beautiful" voice which made me really happy since I used to get trolled endlessly for sounding like a "howling wolf".
During the trip, I made some sketches from around the town in ink and watercolour.
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