There There

Trigger Warning is a participatory installation that merges traditional games from English village fêtes with the xenophobia of the media’s anti-immigrant, and specifically anti-Eastern European rhetoric. The audience is invited to experience the life of a typical immigrant as imagined by the British media over the last decade: the job-stealing, benefits-scrounging, non-integrated Eastern European.

Devised by There There, a 50% Serbian, 50% Romanian performance duo, Trigger Warning is invigilated by a group of Eastern Europeans of different professional, economic and generational experiences. The artistic material is handed over with no attached agenda, giving the invigilators agency to disagree with the artists, the games, or the audience. Sharing the cultural capital and significance of the Tate Modern space between artists, invigilators and active audiences, Trigger Warning proposes a new platform for integrated post-referendum discussions on immigration.

Game Design: Naomi Kuyck-Cohen

There There partnered with the Black Sheep Collective from Wolverton who created ‘Bad Nagtowek’ which responded to the negative portrayal of people immigrating from European countries in the national and local media.

During the day an Ideas Lab exploring identity, belonging, ‘integration’ and xenophobia in Milton Keynes and Wolverton was facilitated by Agnes Czajka from the Open University. Participants were invited to share their stories of migration, integration, identity and belonging (whether positive, negative, poignant or funny) through a 5-minute contribution – a personal story, a piece of music, a set of family photos, an artefact – that spoke to their personal experiences of migration, identity or belonging.

About the artist