What is the Mediterranean Sea? The frontier of Europe? A graveyard? or a space where anything is possible?
With the brand new editorial project #blueborder Cafébabel moves South to explore the youth of five Mediterranean islands: five cobblestones lost in the great blue, each with one foot in and one foot out of the European Union. What are the dreams of the young people living on these islands? What are their hopes? What are they fighting for? Isolated, yet at the same time anchored to their respective identities, Malta, Cyprus, Sicily, Crete and Corsica are much more than mass tourism destinations. From migration to environmental challenges to independence movements, these isles have often played an avant garde role in setting the pivotal questions that will define the future of Europe.
Following from previous award-winning editorial projects – Balkans & Beyond, Beyond 91 and Borderline – Cafébabel continues to innovate in the field of European journalism. It does so with a new series of on-the-ground reports based on transnational and cross-border perspectives and collaborations. Five multimedia stories authored by a new generation of journalists and photographers raised in Europe and beyond – in Russia and Kenya – will be translated and published in four languages.
Beyond the website, a touring exhibition in 2020 will bring the best photos from each of the stories to Marseille, Brussels, Chemnitz and Palermo.
Why go offline this time? We want to meet younger generations who are distant from the European bubble, to talk with them about European identities in a peripheral context.
#blueborder wants to broaden the debate on Europe in real life and understand what it means to live “apart” geographically or socially, be it on an island or in a difficult neighbourhood.
Are you ready to embark?
This project is backed by:
