First Connect
What would it be like if we could connect people from all over Europe and beyond through questions and uncertainties? What if we didn’t try to answer those questions but only to respond with more questions? Would that create a tool for change? Or maybe a recipe for an awesome mess?
Those are some of the questions we started with at the Spaces for Solidarity gathering that was planned to be in Rijeka in Croatia in the summer of 2020 but ended up on zoom due to the impact of Covid-19.
The Fellowship of Questions came from that meeting. A grouping of people from different places (Italy, Serbia, Germany, Netherlands, Romania, England, Portugal) decided to develop a project that created a solidarity of uncertainty. To stay with questions rather than answers.
And then...
People liked the idea. More than that people actually decided to back the idea...with money. Both the European Cultural Foundation and the Allianz Kulturstiftung put money into developing the Fellowship of Questions idea.
The plan
At the beginning of 2021 the Fellowship started organising local projects in the different countries to test out the idea with people of all ages and backgrounds.
People still liked the idea.
So in the summer of 2021 the projects started crossing borders. For example homeless men in Portugal asking questions through poetry with responses from young people in the UK. Some of the ideas happen in the offline world with pen and paper, letters, and chalk on pavements. Some of it in the online world of zoom and miro, facebook and instagram.
The Fellowship created a website to bring those ideas and projects together in one place during 2022; a brand new digital platform for the Fellowship of Questions.
