Conversations From Calais

Conversations From Calais

Conversations From Calais

Conversations From Calais aims to re-humanise those affected by the refugee crisis by using public space to share conversations volunteers have had with migrants met in Calais. It is a way of bearing witness for the thousands of displaced people stuck in Calais and trying to reach the UK, whose voices are so often silenced or ignored. This ever-growing collection of conversations focuses on capturing the diversity of experiences and avoids creating new stereotypes of refugees as villains, heroic figures or hopeless victims. By pasting these posters on walls all around the world, we are taking over public space, commemorating these voices and inspiring social change.

I started this project in October 2019. I had been volunteering in Calais on and off for two years now, and every time I came back, I felt the need to share what I experienced there. I wanted find a way to break away from how migrants were portrayed in mainstream media by remembering, documenting and commemorating banal but intimate and relatable conversations. I took the train down to Dover to paste up my first set of posters using home-made glue I had made that morning. These posters were based on my own personal conversations I’d had, so it felt liberating but also scary to put them up for anyone to read. I knew that once they were up in the streets, they weren’t really mine anymore. On the same day, I also created an Instagram account to create a visual archive of all the posters and reach a wider audience. I have been posting these stories since.

One of my favourite aspects of this project is that it is open to collaboration. This collection of more than 170 conversations has now been pasted up on walls in 60 cities in 5 continents, been translated in 15 different languages and has been featured in the press internationally.

These are A3 digitally printed posters pasted up using homemade glue all over the world.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/gallery/2020/feb/25/conversations-from-calais-the-posters-sharing-migrant-voices-with-the-world https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/y3ze3v/conversations-from-calais-mathilda-della-torre https://www.thecanary.co/feature/2020/02/24/a-powerful-new-project-re-humanises-those-affected-by-the-refugee-crisis/ https://www.publico.pt/2020/03/02/p3/fotogaleria/viloes-herois-vitimas-palavras-historias-permanecem-calais-400464 https://scenearabia.com/Life/Conversations-from-Calais-The-Poster-Project-Documenting-Refugees-Voices-on-Walls-Around-the-World https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/art/conversations-from-calais-the-powerful-design-project-giving-a-voice-to-refugees-1.995540

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnSzF2FOnKc&ab_channel=MathildaDellaTorre

https://www.mathildadellatorre.com/ https://www.instagram.com/mathildadellatorre/ https://www.conversationsfromcalais.com/

My name is Mathilda and I am a French/Italian graphic designer and illustrator. I use my practice to look closer for longer, to bring people together through creative exchanges and to place marginalised voices at the centre of our stories. I co-founded On The Mend, a design studio that targets social inequalities in the UK healthcare system and I am the graphics co-ordinator at Migrant’s Bureau.

London, UK