After imagine celebrated its 20th anniversary last year, the next round is about to begin: on Friday and Saturday, June 9/10, the popular imagineFestival, a supra-regional crowd-puller with a national message, will once again take place on Barfüsserplatz in the heart of Basel. A grandiose and diverse music and awareness-raising program once again underscores this year’s imagine-slogan “For diversity. Against discrimination”.
It’s hard to imagine the Basel cultural scene without the imagine festival. This year, various events are taking place in the city under the motto “Head Drawers”. Anyone interested is invited to attend free themed events on awareness-raising topics and various musical acts. Almost 90 percent of the artists this year include at least one non-cis-male member. Highlights include Ukrainian rapper Alyona Alyona and the drag show hosted by drag queens Odette Hella’Grand and Milky Diamond. The culinary offerings at the festival are vegetarian.
More than a festival
The self-organized youth project of terre des hommes schweiz is more than just a festival. The unique autonomous creative laboratory run by young people from the Basel region has been making an important contribution to a fairer and more peaceful world with various events for more than 20 years.
“imagine is the creative laboratory for a polyphonic, diverse and inclusive society,” says Luciano Gagliardi, project coordinator for imagine at terre des hommes schweiz. “A society that gives everyone a place and where we treat each other as equals.”
The imagine team consists of around 40 teenagers and young adults. Every year, numerous volunteers are also involved in the imagine programme with the aim of campaigning against all forms of discrimination and for non-violent and peaceful coexistence. imagine does awareness-raising work in the form of workshops at schools, podcasts on the topic of “prejudice and pigeonholing”, film series on strong female roles and collaborations on topics such as discrimination based on physical limitations. In this way, imagine realizes its vision of being more than just a festival.
imagine in figures
– 28,000 visitors a year to the imagine festival
– 100 volunteers a year
– 5000 working hours a year
terre des hommes schweiz empowers young people in Africa, Latin America and Switzerland. Together with them, we fight poverty, violence and discrimination and campaign for the rights of children and young people and fair North-South relations. Our core competence lies in participatory and solution-oriented work with young people.
Links:
Press kit: https://www.imaginebasel.ch/presse-2023
Festival website: https://www.imaginebasel.ch/festival2023
terre des hommes schweiz about imagine: https://www.terredeshommesschweiz.ch/imagine/
Information:
For the expertise on youth participation ->
Luciano Gagliardi (he/him), Project Coordination imagine at terre des hommesschweiz , luciano.gagliardi@terredeshommes.ch, +41 79 341 58 90
Contact media office imagine basel->
Fama Diouf (she/her), fama.diouf@imaginebasel.ch,+41 78 223 20 32
For the awareness-raising work of imagine “For Diversity – Against Discrimination” and for the thematic events at the festival->
Chiara Dueblin (she/her), chiara.dueblin@imaginebasel.ch,+41 79 720 91 00
For the festival program and the musical acts->
Joshua Rössle (he/him), joshua.roessle@imaginefestival.ch,+41 79 384 56 13
Contact media office terre des hommes schweiz:
Valerie Wendenburg (she/her), valerie.wendenburg@terredeshommes.ch,+41 61 335 91 51
