Episode Details

“We have a motto that says that ‘we want to change the gaze on immigration or to open the eyes on immigration’. We’re not here to make action in society, but we want people who come here to have elements of reflection, perception about the question of immigration. To change a mind, because immigration is about the stories of people who come from another country–they are someone else, basically–by assisting them we want to show how someone else can be great for us and not a stranger, foreigner, nor an enemy, but a friend. Someone who will bring us many things about culture, about work, about a way of meaning, of thinking. We have a historical point of view. We want to show that from the French Revolution until now, so two centuries of stories.”

Sébastien Gokalp is the director of France’s National Museum of Immigration. He has managed projects at Centre Pompidou and musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris and curated exhibitions of Andy Warhol, Lucio Fontana, Robert Crumb, and others. He curates at the Louis Vuitton Foundation and teaches at the Ecole du Louvre. Recognizing that immigration is one of today’s most important issues, he sees his work as an opportunity to educate and combine his background in history and art. 

· www.histoire-immigration.fr
· www.creativeprocess.info