Beccaria Diaries

A ukrainian-​german vlog about freedom to travel

project description

From September till December 2020 , in the middle of the pandemic, 30 young people from Kharkiv and Berlin are working in a mutual research and video project.

The participants work on the the history of the freedom to travel in historic and current contexts and present their conclusions in an artistic video blog, that is launched in December 2020.

According to the italian philosopher of the epoc of Enlightenment Cesare Beccaria, one of the first theoretics of the freedom of travel, restrictions on freedom of travel are acts of nationalistic demarcation. Kharkiv and Berlin, Ukraine and Germany have until present days a turbulent history in connection to the freedom of travel, its latest chapter are the restrictions during the corona pandemic. Questions of freedom of travel are closely connected to mechanisms of power, politics, opression and privileges. These are the topics that the paricipants in Kharkiv anf Berlin will work on.

In Ukraine as well as in germany workshops were held simultaneously to prepare the research and the video production of the participants. In these workshops young people were introduced to a variety of methods of research and artistic work which they used during the duration of the project.

The workshops took place at the same time in Berlin and Kharkiv to give the different groups the oppurtunity to work in and exchange ideas during online conferences, talk together about the freedom of travel, documentation and research. After the workshop and personal research phase, the participants produced videos for a video blog that is broadcasted by the websites and networks of the partner organisations.

For the video production we got professional help in video cutting and photography. Each participant could choose the format of their video production individually, cooperations between participants of different countries were possible as well.