Ticketed

Essential Information

Type Events and festivals
Location
Date and Times Friday 13 June 2025 | 6.30pm-8.30pm
Prices Free

This event highlights the perils of maritime migration, through short films and panel discussions. 

The central Mediterranean Sea between North Africa and Europe is the deadliest migration route in the world, with thousands of migrants losing their lives each year in precarious boats. 

Maritime migration to the UK has also seen a significant increase, with over 150,000 people arriving across the English Channel since 2018. 

This event will feature insights from filmmakers, academics and creatives, discussing issues from cultural displacement to identity. 

It will take place in the Lecture Theatre at the National Maritime Museum, and is part of a series of events at Royal Museums Greenwich marking Refugee Week.

Collage of B&W drawings about migrants on boats
Image courtesy of PositiveNegatives

Event timings

Doors and bar open: 5.45pm

Film screenings: 6.30pm

Panel discussion: 7.30pm

Event finishes: 8.30pm

Film screenings

The Story of Migration

Length: 07:19

This short, animated film aims to tell the complex historical and contemporary story of the relationship between migration and global inequalities.

Credits: Karrie Fransman (Creator), Gameli Tordzro (Voice Over), Richard Hughes (Sound) Dr Benjamin Worku-Dix (Director)

Life on the Move

Length: 03:31

Life on the Move is a stop-motion animation exploring the complex reasons behind migration, showcasing research from the Horn of Africa as a case study. 

The film brings to life a multitude of migrant experiences, exploring the personal, social and economic reasons why people move across borders.

Please be aware that it contains depictions of violence.

Credits: Karrie Fransman (Producer), Osbert Parker (Stop Motion Director), Dr Benjamin Worku-Dix (Director)

Dear Habib

Length: 03:40

Dear Habib brings to life the challenges and opportunities that young unaccompanied migrants face. The film follows Habib, who journeyed to the UK from Afghanistan at just 14, and his experience of transitioning to adulthood.

Please be aware that it contains depictions of violence.

Credits: Beni Morard (Art and Animation), Ryan Goodwin-Smith (Scriptwriter), Majid Anin (Director)

Unstoppable Beat

Length: 05:47

The film tells the story of a Haitian migrant in Brazil fighting for his rights to work, buy a house and most importantly, reunite with his family from Haiti.

Credits: Studio Gruff (animation), Richard Hughes (sound and music), Oliver Meech (Scriptwriter), Dr Benjamin Worku-Dix (Producer), Luke & Rufus Dye-Montefiore (Directors)

About PositiveNegatives

PositiveNegatives is a non-profit creative research organisation based at SOAS University of London. 

It works collaboratively with research teams to develop engaging and impactful comics, animations and educational resources to reach new audiences and help build a creative legacy from the research findings.

Panel discussion

Meet the panellists

Image
photo with a model of a woman, standing on a map and a canvas tent behind her, like an animation
Image courtesy of PositiveNegatives

Dr Benjamin Worku-Dix

Dr Benjamin Worku-Dix is the Founding Director of PositiveNegatives and a Senior Fellow at SOAS, University of London. 

Image
part of a drawing showing a boat sliding out of the frame

Shorsh Saleh

Shorsh Saleh is an artist. His works focus on the subjects of migration and identity, employing the traditional techniques of miniature painting in a contemporary context.

His work Crossing Border (pictured), has recently been acquired by Royal Museums Greenwich.

Image
photo of a women in a library very dark except for her face

Güler Ateş

Güler Ateş was born in Eastern Turkey and lives and works in the UK. Her multidisciplinary work encompasses video, photography, printmaking and performance through which she explores the experience of identity, diaspora and cultural displacement.

Güler graduated in 2008 from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Fine Art. Currently, she is Digital Print Tutor at the Royal Academy Schools. Her work can be found in the print collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, Government Art Collection (UK), Oude Kerk Amsterdam, Huis Marseille, Museum Van Loon in Amsterdam, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR) in Rio de Janeiro and the Museum of Oriental Art in Turin. 

 

What’s On

photo with a model of a woman, standing on a map and a canvas tent behind her, like an animation
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