Goethe-Institut
Vereinigtes Königreich

The European Project
Promised Land No More?

Photo: © Lennart Laberenz
Photo: © Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen
Film Still (Kelly) © Stéphanie Régnier

The shifts in current European politics, particularly the rise of nationalist, populist, and Eurosceptic movements, are shaking the very core of the European project, and fundamentally challenging its ideals.

The situation is further charged by recent pivotal political events in the UK and several European countries, and exacerbated by the present migratory crises along European borders. What has for so many come to represent a ‘Promised Land’ offers in fact very different realities.

We invite you to leave the comfort zone of liberal consensus and join the debate on how to move forward in these uncertain times.

With a timely programme of events the Goethe-Institut London provides a unique platform to raise urgent debate and awareness of the challenges, responsibilities and consequences the current political climate presents.

We are collaborating with an exciting range of partners, such as Culture+Conflict, the ICA, Frieze Projects and Central Saint Martins, to engage renowned national and international artists, intellectuals and experts, as well as the wider public.

#PromisedLand

Find Out About Our Projects

Audio Installation Quicksand by Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen

As part of the event series Promised Land, Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen, in collaboration with Duncan Pickstock, has been commissioned to create a new piece of work, titled Quicksand.

SymposiumPromised Land

The Promised Land Symposium saw artists, experts and professionals working in the field addressing the alarming shifts in current European politics.

Film series The Suspended Lives of Refugees and Migrants

Throughout November and December 2016 the Goethe-Institut London presented a series of select films at the institute addressing and raising debate around current refugee and migration crises.

Library Our Library recommends

Our library offers different items that examine the topics flight and migration from different perspectives. You can find our recommendations for novels, audiobooks, reports and DVDs here.

Articles on the topic of migration

Conference on European Angst“We have many identities”

Vladimira Dvorakova, Didier Eribon und Shermin Langhoff with students. Photo: Caroline Lessire For two days, at the European Angst Conference, authors, academics, journalists and students grappled with populism, extremism and the rise in Euroscepticism. The meeting organized by the Goethe-Institut Brussels restores hope.

Great BritainFrances Stonor Saunders

Frances Stonor Saunders Photo: Sophia Spring Frances Stonor Saunders is a historian whose work includes Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War. She writes for several publications, including The Guardian and the London Review of Books.

An interview with Firas Alshater“It's not my dream job, however, to be a refugee”

Firas Alshater © Jim Naughton “Who are these Germans?” This is the question Firas Alshater asks on his Youtube channel called Zukar. Check out this interview with the Syrian filmmaker who lives in Berlin and find out his views on acceptance, on what a home country and humour means to him.

Voluntary HelpersMoments of Pure joy at Work with Refugees

Hend from Syria and the German helper Heike have become friends. Photo (detail): © Andrea Marshall By the end of 2015 Germany will have taken in almost a million refugees. Most of the people helping in the reception centres are working there on an unpaid, voluntary basis.

The German Emigration CentrePeople between Dreams and Uncertainty

The German Emigration Centre at the New Port Photo (detail): © Deutsches Auswandererhaus/Kay Riechers At the German Emigration Centre visitors get an idea of what flight and emigration mean for the individual. Furthermore, the museum in Bremerhaven makes emphatically clear that many Germans were forced to leave their homes.

Michaela Crimmin | January 2017

Michaela Crimmin, founder and co-director of Culture+Conflict, ‘a not-for-profit agency focusing on art produced in, or in response to, conflict and post-conflict situations across the world’ answers questions asked by Alessandra Cianetti.

January 2017

Europe: The Reconstruction of the Free World

Are borders really the normal state of affairs? A critical and historical approach suggests this is in fact a very recent development. [...] A radical futuristic plan for a borderless Europe.

Europe: The Reconstruction of the Free World

Where on Earth are you?

The one border we all cross, so often and with such well-rehearsed reflexes that we barely notice it, is the threshold of our own home. We open the front door, we close the front door: it’s the most basic geographical habit, and yet one lifetime is not enough to recount all our comings and goings across this boundary.