Twenty citizens from across the European Union gathered in Florence for ten days in March 2012 — each carrying stories and cultural knowledge at risk of disappearing. Participants came from minority communities: Roma, Sinti, migrants, refugees, and indigenous groups whose narratives are often excluded from mainstream European discourse.
The Grundtvig Workshop created space for these citizens to become storytellers. Rather than being subjects of a documentary, they became authors of their own narratives. The project translated these stories into multiple forms: drama, dance, photography, video, written testimony. The residency was not extractive — it was generative. Participants left with their stories amplified, documented, and shared.
J3ZZ participated both as an artist within this community and as the sonic architect of the resulting film. The workshop itself became the work: twenty people from different backgrounds, different languages, different histories, collaborating to make their voices heard.
Residency Participants included: Marina Arienzale, Pamela Barberi, Simon Bradley, Sarah Bulang, Eleftherios Galanis, Greta Grendaite, Katalin Heiszer, Iveta Kudrjavceva, J3ZZ, Tonka Malekovic, Lucie Micikova, Mihaela Mihai, Süleyman Özar, Evangelia Papaloi, Olga Pavlenko, Kalin Serapionov, Ieva Studente, Mine Tapinç, Guy Woueté, Virginia Zanetti
