Memories of the Border

La version française suit

Join us for readings and screenings of selections from "Memories of the Border" followed by a discussion with those involved in the making of the series.

Since the summer of 2025, Montreal-based Solidarity Across Borders (SAB), a migrant justice network comprised of migrants and supporters, has been in collaboration with Concordia’s Feminist Media Studio (FMS) to create a community-led oral history project called “Memories of the Border”. Together, FMS and SAB work to create an interview testimonial series, giving voice to the experiences of undocumented migrants, tracing their journeys, their difficulties, and their hopes, while humanizing a reality that is too often invisible.

This project hopes to create an awareness-raising and advocacy tool for the regularization of undocumented migrants, provide a collective memory that bears witness to their presence and contribution to society, all while strengthening community solidarity by highlighting the voices of those whose experiences are often reduced to political debates and public discourse, rather than recognized through the complexity of their everyday lives.

Through this conversation, we hope to receive feedback on our work-in-progress and have a fruitful discussion about the power of community storytelling in contributing to political and social action, along with what it means, personally, to find empowerment in having one’s own story be heard, witnessed, and felt.

How can you participate? Join us in person by or online by registering for the Zoom Meeting or watching live on YouTube.

Have questions or if we can make this event more accessible for you: Contact us at info.4@concordia.ca

This discussion will be held in French, English, and Spanish, with translation into English.

Joignez-vous à nous pour des projections d’extraits de Mémoires De La Frontière, suivie d’une discussion avec les personnes ayant participé à la réalisation de la série.

Depuis l’été 2025, Solidarité Sans Frontières(SSF), un réseau Montréalais pour la justice migrante composé de personnes migrantes et de personnes solidaires, collabore avec le Feminist Media Studio (FMS) de l’Université Concordia à la création d’un projet d’histoire orale communautaire intitulé Mémoires De La Frontière. Ensemble, le FMS et SSF réalisent une série de témoignages sous forme d’entrevues qui donnent la parole à des personnes migrantes sans statut, en retraçant leurs parcours, les difficultés qu’elles rencontrent et les espoirs qu’elles nourrissent, tout en humanisant une réalité trop souvent invisibilisée.

Ce projet vise à créer un outil de sensibilisation et de revendication en faveur de la régularisation des personnes migrantes sans statut, à constituer une mémoire collective qui témoigne de leur présence et de leur contribution à la société, et à renforcer la solidarité communautaire. Le projet met en lumière les voix de personnes dont les expériences sont trop souvent réduites à des débats politiques et à des discours publics, plutôt que reconnues dans toute la complexité de leur quotidien.

À travers cette discussion, nous souhaitons recueillir vos commentaires sur notre projet en cours et à partager un échange enrichissant sur le pouvoir des récits communautaires comme levier d’action politique et sociale. Nous aimerions également réfléchir à ce que signifie, sur un niveau personnel, le fait de trouver du pouvoir d’agir dans le partage de son histoire, lorsqu’elle est entendue, accueillie et ressentie par les autres.

La discussion se déroulera en français, en anglais et en espagnol, avec une traduction vers l’anglais.

Members of the “Memories of the Border” project, including: Hady Anne Kodoye, Simone Lucas Kłodawa, Jasmine Hwang, Eugenia Castrillo, and others.

About SAB 

Solidarity Across Borders is a migrant justice network based in Montreal, active since 2003. We are comprised of migrants and supporters, and we organize together to support individuals and families who are confronting an unjust immigration and refugee system. We engage in popular education, support work, as well as political mobilizations, including demonstrations, pickets, delegations, and direct actions. Our main demands are an end to deportations, detentions and double punishment, and support for a full, comprehensive and ongoing regularization program (ie. Status for All!). We also actively campaign to build a Solidarity City, the creation of a community that rejects a system that engenders poverty and anguish, not solely for immigrants and refugees, but also for other Montrealers confronting these same realities. We support open borders and the free movement of people seeking justice and dignity, meaning freedom to move, freedom to return, and the freedom to stay.

About FMS 

The Feminist Media Studio is a practice-led research and creative lab, mediating gendered, queer and trans life entangled in long histories of colonization, border politics, climate crisis, displacement and occupation.

We commit to intersectional and situated research and creative practice that align with our core lab values: Grounding Aesthetics in the Political, Centering Queer/Trans Experience, Unlearning Colonialism, Creating Spaces of Refuge, and Centering Process over Outputs.