Melissa Smedley and Doris Bittar initiate performances in Denmark Project

Melissa reports: "along with Doris Bittar and Todd Ayoung, we were invited by CAMP: Center for Art on Migration Politics, nestled in a place called Trampoline House, "a community center in Copenhagen that provides refugees and asylum seekers in Denmark with a place of support, community, and purpose".  Collaboratively, we developed three performances for the Art Zone of the Roskilde music festival (a week-long pop-up small city!). Our working title was "Storming the Wall"; and thanks to a team of extraordinarily engaged volunteers, our art interventions addressed themes including migrant labor, de-colonizing our bodies, and worldwide border conditions.  Our art activities were accompanied by discussion, even amidst the raucus, windy, "hot as a frying pan", crowded, venue.  What ensued was a somewhat structured group collaboration, and a bonding experience with our volunteers, shareable through three videos showing on Vimeo:
1) Red Light Green Light
2) Trackless Shoes
3) Ululation Choir
Art Ranger found it to be a poignant surprise, to have flown over 6000 miles away from home to discover that people there were experiencing, and expressing, - just as directly - the uncertainty and angst from this tragicomedy as (we/so many) U.S. citizens are.  On this trip we also met, and worked with, young people whose lives have been torn and spit out by our foreign policy, in serious ongoing limbo.  Our art activities sought to bring attention to these societal/ global issues in a way that was physical, visual and visceral, and yet bearing these topics with enough lightness to digest, to listen in.