Connection and permission are recurring themes in the work of Bern O’Donoghue . Addressing social and political issues, her process led practice explores the means in which simple artistic activities can be catalysts for progressive change. Since 2010, the artist has employed immersive projects to examine the power of words to shape perception, translating tacit making about social change, migrant displacement and disappearance into human centred and affective content. Her most recent work employs the use of everyday materials and social media as it challenges myths about refugees and migrants. Begun in 2015, the project has expanded into installations bearing witness to the thousands of migrants and refugees who die crossing the Mediterranean Sea as they attempt to reach Europe. Through this work the artist visually explores the notion of ‘other’, resting in the overlap between ‘us’ and ‘them’ to forge emotional connection. Comprised of thousands of tiny, hand-marbled paper boats, presents a fragile reminder of the individuals caught up in Europe’s biggest humanitarian crisis since WW2, provoking inquiry and engagement that reaches beyond statistics or headlines.

Yasmin Aktar (Citizens UK)

Dr Jennifer Bagelman (University of Exeter)

Jen Bagelman's activist and academic work is concerned with advancing anti-colonial migrant justice, particularly through arts-based research. Her work seeks to contribute to Indigenous, migrant-led political movements, such as 'No One is Illegal.' Most recently she has co-designed picturebooks with women employed as Live-in Caregivers on Coast Salish Territories (Vancouver Island) as a method for documenting experiential geographies of Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program. She is currently a Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Exeter.

Inderjit Bhogal (City of Sanctuary, Sheffield)

Inderjit Bhogal lives in Sheffield and is a Methodist Minister currently working as a Learning and Development Officer. He is a former President of the British Methodist Conference. Inderjit has been instrumental in the founding and establishing of the City of Sanctuary movement across Britain and Ireland.

Dr Angharad Closs Stephens (Swansea University)

Dr Angharad Closs Stephens is a senior lecturer in Human Geography at Swansea University and author ofShe is currently working on a project about the 'Atmospheres of Nationalism', asking what it feels like to be part of a community with and against others. She is assistant editor of the journal,

Usifu Jalloh (Performance Artist and Storyteller)

Alex Ntung (Expert Witness, Advisor and Trainer in Inclusion & Diversity)

Alex was born into a family of cattle-herders in South Kivu, a province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Growing up he survived extreme poverty, hardship and violence at a terrifying scale and lost many members of his family. His hunger for education took him to a school in Uvira. Here, countless incidents of xenophobia and violence were directed at him as a member of the minority Banyamulenge ethnic group (also sometimes known as ‘Tutsi Congolese’) in the DRC. He later had to flee to Rwanda where he witnessed the 1994 genocide and subsequent violence fuelled by Tutsi and Hutu ethnicity. Alex later came to the UK and underwent a stringent asylum process and, learned English and later gained a postgraduate diploma in management studies and an MA in Anthropology of Conflict, Violence and Conciliation at the University of Sussex. He is author of the , a book about his life in Rwanda and DRC. He has occupied several responsibilities in the public and community sector and, internationally, he has been involved in peace and political mediation work in conflict affected areas. Alex is speaker and universities guest lecturer offering honest insights into issues of migration, human security and cultural insensitivity in conflict resolution. Alex is currently a country expert witness (DRC, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda) in security, cultural, linguistic, religious and ethnic issues in litigation. He is also a specialist trainer in diversity and migration and has co-published resources for teachers.

Giovanna Del Sarto (Documentary Photographer and Creator of )

Professor Nira Yuval-Davis (University of East London)

Professor Nira Yuval-Davis is a diasporic Israeli Jew living in London. She is the Director of the Research Centre on Migration, Refugees and Belonging (CMRB: http://www.uel.ac.uk/cmrb/index.htm) at the University of East London. She has been a member of the 2006 Sociology RAE panel and the 2014 Sociology REF panel, the President of the Research Committee 05 (on Racism, Nationalism and Ethnic Relations) of the International Sociological Association and is a founder member of and the Her recent research projects include the ESRC project on and the EU 7th frame project on She is an editor of the Palgrave MacMilan book series onAmong her books are (1992), (1995), (Sage, 1997), (2004), (2011), Women Against Fundamentalism: Stories of Dissent and Solidarity (2014) and (forthcoming, 2018). Her works have been translated into more than ten languages.

Dead Reckoning / Crossing the Med: Thinking and Feeling Migration Differently