ComiX4= Comics for Equality

www.comix4equality.eu | www.facebook.com/Comix4equality

What?

ComiX4= Comics for Equality wanted to carry out something new: to promote the voice and the art of young migrant cartoonists tackling issues relating to racism and migration and thus actively involving them in a communicative on-line and off-line campaign throughout Europe.

How?

The project, which directed “the European first prize for the best unpublished comics by an artists of migrant backgrounds” involved 41 cartoonists from 21 European countries who have together uploaded 56 comics online. The award ComiX4= has been the first European award on racism and inter-culture directed exclusively at cartoonists of migrant origins, who have displayed the many forms of migration, highlighting the aspects that they or their parents have lost, found and are on the point of building. The comics are available in 9 languages on the Comics for Equality site www.comix4equality.eu and through our Facebook page www.facebook.com/Comix4equality. In two years, more than 370,000 people have been reached with around a hundred comments, with more than 7,100 likes and more than 1,500 shares.

ComiX4= has been on tour with 14 cartoon exhibitions and 15 comics workshops in 10 European countries (Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, Finland and Belgium) and directed by the artists of the Award, with more than 200 young participants. In Italy, a new form of involvement of artists and citizens was also tested with two evenings of live comic performances and DJ sets, in which migrant cartoonists have drawn live in a public location sharing and interacting with the public through their work. The project concluded with a final conference addressing the new forms of communication against racism and discrimination, with the participation of international speakers (the European Council, UNAR, Andalucia Acoge, Fabrica).

In 2014 ComiX4= Comics for Equality won the Intercultural Innovation Award, a partnership between UNAOC and the BMW Group. The project was celebrated, together with 10 other innovative projects, as a unique Italian initiative selected from more than 600 projects from all over the world.

Also, ComiX4= was nominated Media Initiative of the Year 2015 within the European Democratic Citizenship Award, launched by the European Civic Forum (to learn more: http://civic-forum.eu/en/non-classe-en/european-democratic-citizenship-awards-laureates-announced).

In the website, all the publications can be downloaded and shared:

  • The Catalogue of ComiX4= in 9 different languages (9,000 printed copies), includes a selection of some of the best comic strips from the Comics for Equality award;
  • The educational-instructive Toolkit of ComiX4= for intercultural education and the media through comics in 9 different languages ​​(5,000 copies);
  • The Brochure of ComiX4= (available in Italian and English), where we have published the best works by the young people who took part in the cartoon workshops carried out in the 5 partner countries of the project ad directed by some of the most talented cartoonists from the ComiX4= award; Dmitry Yagodin, Amanda Baeza, Mari Ahokoivu, Carlos Carmonamedina, Dace Sietina e Elena Vitagliano.

We have also made a brief animated video that sums up all the results and the output of the project and is available to watch on our You Tube channel: bit.ly/comixvideo.