CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS
What does it mean to belong when you live between cultures — when the place you grew up in is not the place you now call home, and perhaps no single place holds that name completely?
This is the question at the heart of my doctoral research project, and I am looking for women in Berlin who are living that question alongside me.
Exploring Cultural Hybridity Through Expressive Arts
About the Project
Nomadic Belonging is a doctoral research project at the European Graduate School (Arts, Health & Society Division), exploring how women who live between cultures can create belonging through the expressive arts. Through walking, writing, and artmaking, we will investigate what it means to carry multiple worlds within us — and how creativity becomes a way of making meaning across those distances.
The project is not about arriving at answers. It is about moving through the questions of nomadic living together.
What Participation Looks Like
Participants will take part in a workshop series in Berlin combining:
Walking — moving through the city as embodied reflection
Creative writing — language as a way of thinking and feeling
Simple artmaking — collage, drawing, and mixed media as expression and translation
The project will culminate in a collective public presentation and exhibition of the group's work — a shared act of witness and creative community.
This is a sustained, collaborative journey rather than a drop-in series. Participants must make a good-faith commitment to the full arc of workshop sessions and to the public presentation — not only to their own creative process, but to the creative and relational field we make together — to bear witness to one another's process and presence. That commitment is itself part of the research.
Who Is Invited
Women from any cultural background who:
have been living outside the culture they grew up in for at least two years — whether they moved by choice or by necessity, temporarily or permanently, recently or long ago
are based in Berlin and expect to remain for at least another year
are able to walk approximately 3 miles non-stop at a pace that is both contemplative and purposeful
have a working knowledge of English (sessions will be conducted in English)
No creative writing or artmaking experience is required. Only curiosity, openness, and a willingness to show up.
A Few Things Worth Knowing
These workshop sessions are not therapy, though they may be personally meaningful and at times deeply moving. The group is a creative field, not a critique circle — a space for expression, witnessing, and shared making.
You retain full ownership and copyright of everything you create. With your permission, work may be included in the doctoral dissertation or public exhibition. You decide what is shared, how it is attributed, and you may withdraw consent at any time before publication or exhibition.
All personal information shared within the group remains confidential unless you choose to make your work public.
How to Express Interest
If this resonates with you, I would love to hear from you. Please write a few lines to meigsbrown@gmail.com telling me:
A little about your background and where you've lived
How long you've been in Berlin and your plans to stay
What draws you to this project
Any questions you have
There is no right or wrong answer. I am simply hoping to get a sense of who you are before we connect.
Researcher: Molly Moylan Brown