Festival of Ideas 2019 - Finding Shelter, Defining Shelter - includes a preview of ‘Shelter Without Shelter' feature-length documentary

-- NOW SOLD OUT --

What is shelter for you? One of the most vital concerns for refugees is where to find a safe and stable space in which to rest, eat, socialise, and sleep. Join us as our interdisciplinary panel explores the roles of architecture, engineering, anthropology, and more to not only improve refugee shelter, but question the very nature of shelter itself.

What is 'appropriate' shelter for refugees?  What is the 'appropriate' role for architects and engineers in refugee shelter, if any?  What ultimately is shelter?

One of the most vital concerns for migrants when they first leave their homes is where to find a safe and stable space in which to rest, eat, socialise, and sleep. Tents and camps dominate media images of forced displacement, but forced migrants find shelter in many other ways, making use of abandoned buildings, staying on the floors of friends and relatives, finding rest in self-built shelters, sleeping in the natural environment, and being housed in specially created spaces, such as 'villages' made-up of stacked shipping containers, prefabricated shelters supported by the IKEA foundation, or government-run detention centres. 

 Through an exclusive preview of the forthcoming feature-length documentary 'Shelter Without Shelter', and discussion with its Director and Producer, this interdisciplinary panel will discuss some of the latest research and issues in refugee shelter to create a more nuanced and detailed understanding of refugee sheltering in all these forms, helping understand the impact of shelter policies and their lives on refugees.  The panel will explore the roles of architecture, engineering, anthropology and more to not only improve refugee shelter, but question the very nature of shelter itself.  

 BOOKINGS NOW OPEN HERE

EVENT SCHEDULE:

16.30-17.00: Private screening of clips from the new feature length documentary 'Shelter Without Shelter' (2020), with introduction by its Emmy-nominated Director Mark E Breeze, and Producer Tom Scott-Smith

 17.00-18.00: Panel and Audience discussion with:

- Dr Mark E Breeze (Architect + Director of Studies in Architecture, St.John's College, Cambridge)

- Dr Tom Scott-Smith (Associate Professor of Forced Migration, Oxford University Refugee Studies Centre)

- Dr. Georgia Cole (Margaret Anstee Centre for Global Studies, Newnham College, University of Cambridge)

- Jenny George (Doctoral Researcher, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge)

- Dunya Habash (Research Officer, The Woolf Institute, Cambridge)