BURC Conference 2025

Iris Altenberger designed two artistic participatory workshops on global migration issues

The 4th Border Urbanism Conference, organized by the Border Urbanism Research Centre (BURC) and hosted by FH Joanneum in cooperation with Robert Gordon University (RGU) and the Department of Social Work at MCI | The Entrepreneurial School®, recently took place in Graz.

International architects, urban researchers, and social scientists came together to discuss urban fragility and migration from a multidisciplinary perspective. The core objective was to understand trace spaces, fragmentation, and power relations in socio-spatial processes, with a thematic focus on “social and spatial fragmentation of migrant communities,” “spatial injustice,” “non-places,” and political governance and policy-making in the context of migration. The interdisciplinary approach of the conference was reflected in its composition: experts from various fields emphasized how crucial geographical, demographic, and political conditions are for understanding global migration realities.

As part of the conference, Iris Altenberger organized two artistic participatory workshops for the Department of Social Work (MCI) together with Cinzia Ciaramicoli (The Itinerants) and Dina Sidhva (University of the West of Scotland).

The first workshop, entitled “Crossing Threads: A Participatory Healing Workshop at the Borderlands of Memory”, addressed issues of memory, migration, and collective healing. In a safe space, participants reflected on their personal experiences with loss, identity, and transitions—symbolized by a T-shirt they had brought with them. In a shared ritual, pieces of fabric were imbued with memories and woven together into a collective fabric. The workshop focused on trauma-sensitive, feminist, and narrative methods and understood memory as a political act of resistance against forgetting.

The second workshop, “The Flowing River Without Edges,” was a silent painting workshop that allowed participants to experience freedom beyond boundaries. On a large sheet of newspaper or fabric, participants painted intuitively using three emotionally chosen colors. Without any guidelines, a collective image emerged as an expression of mobility, openness, and connection. The artistic practice was characterized by the dissolution of boundaries—not through confrontation, but through the gentle rejection of limitations. Finally, participants reflected together in silence or in conversation.

Both workshops combined artistic forms of expression with socio-political issues and offered spaces for quiet but profound engagement with migration, memory, and the desire for belonging.