Fliehen & Forschen

In Brunswick, today’s immigration politics are full of contradictions. The city is a renowned international research centre with scientists from over 40 countries. At the same time, Lower Saxony’s largest asylum centre is to be found in Brunswick – more than 1000 asylum seekers are living here with an uncertain future. And so Brunswick offers on the one hand a “welcoming culture” for foreign workers that are needed in various areas of research and on the other, a policy of exclusion, custodianship and deportation. Through what factors do people from countries like Iran, Syria, Sudan, Palestine or Afghanistan become either people of flight or researchers in Brunswick? What does our different approaches to migrants tell us about our conceptions of utility, readiness to help, gratitude and earned quality of life? Developed from a series of interviews, the resulting documentary musical performance searches for what national state borders attempt to impede.