Hier in Europa: the role of Europe in our daily lives

Studio Europa Maastricht launches a special collaboration* with research agency Dear Hunter and media collective Are We Europe. Under the title ‘Hier in Europa’ we will investigate the role of Europe in daily life in the Maastricht district Heer from April to September 2020.

Dear Hunter will map Heer around a number of themes: security & (open) borders, entrepreneurship & the labour market and the energy transition. The journalists of Are We Europe will add a rich collection of photographs, videos and written stories, which will come together on the map and in publications: Online, on the website we develop for this purpose, but also locally in the form of debates and a mini exhibition.

Heer (Hier), Europe and Corona

‘Coronavirus nightmare could be the end for Europe’s borderless dream’ The New York Times recently headlined. Despite the fact that, by tackling the corona crisis, Europe is emphatically manifesting itself in our daily lives, the current closed borders and tensions between European countries also make it seem further away than ever. And it is precisely this that we are going to examine in the coming period.

The themes therefore undeniably stand in the light of the coronavirus, which obviously doesn’t care about national borders. What do we notice at the local level of the European cooperation and tensions that exist? How does the coronavirus affect the European character of Heer and Maastricht? In which areas can or should Europe do more for Europeans? Where, on the contrary, should it do less?

*About ‘Hier in Europa’ and the unique cooperation

Hier in Europa is organised by Studio Europa Maastricht as part of the program Maastricht Working on Europe, set up in 2018 by the Province of Limburg, the Municipality of Maastricht and Maastricht University. The project, which is realised in collaboration with Dear Hunter and Are We Europe, is co-financed by the EUProtects campaign of the European Union.