I volunteered with a pop-up theatre in the Calais refugee camp. Here’s what I learnt
As human beings, we need three things to survive: food, water and shelter. But once these three needs have been met, we need a reason to stay alive. As creatures hardwired for connection, that purpose for living is often bound up with our need for expression, community and creativity.
As a theatre maker and producer, I have spent the last decade devoted to making art accessible to people isolated from it, such as women in prison or people on the streets. I was living in London when the refugee crisis in Europe reached unprecedented levels and feeling helpless and heartbroken by the reality, I knew that theatre was a skill and passion I could offer. With a bag full of supplies and a nervous heart full of hope, I made my way to the enormous refugee camp known as the Calais “Jungle”.
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The camp was located on the northernmost shores of France. Across the channel, lay England: a destination desired by many but reached by only a few. The first time I visited I could only stay for three days. Upon returning to London, I was filled with tremendous guilt that I could jump on a train and so quickly, easily and safely arrive home. I was born in Australia and migrated to the UK almost 14 years ago. My dad had arrived in Australia in 1938 as a Jewish refugee from Austria and my mum immigrated from Canada, so I was also deeply aware of the irony and privilege of my personal circumstances. When we think about immigration or refugees, we don’t think of people who look like me. I was able to move around the town of Calais and between the English and French border with ease, because my skin is white. I carry that ridiculous privilege with me every day.
From October 2015, I spent the next nine months working with Good Chance Theatre in the Calais refugee camp. French authorities vowed to clear out the area in October 2016 and while the camp as we knew it remains inactive, there are around 1,000 refugees in even worse conditions sleeping in the woods in northern France.
Naeem Hayat as Hamlet performs the ‘O what a rogue and peasant slave am I’ soliloquy. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian
It is important to know the Calais camp was never officially recognised. No government or NGO oversaw the organisation or management of it. It was an endlessly complex, complicated, crazy, unexpected and amazing place. I was just one of countless people who arrived there with the same human need to do something – the best we could with what we had.
Every weekend, trucks arrived bringing food and clothes donated by well-intentioned Europeans, resulting in countless hours spent sorting through entirely inappropriate donations. There were no systems in place to deal with what was distributed: sometimes, camp residents would line up for hours, only to miss out on whatever was being offered. Trauma was everywhere, as was police brutality. Tear gas was constantly used and you didn’t have to look far to find residents with horrendous injuries and wounds, beaten by police for trying to climb onto trucks to smuggle themselves across to England. It was the best and the worst of humanity.
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The Good Chance Theatre was a space where residents could have the choice to reflect on their journey or try to forget about it, even if just for a moment. We called it a theatre, but it was so much more. It was one of many human respites that popped up in this strange “illegal” encampment. There were also churches, mosques, restaurants, schools, a library and a gym.
With the help of crowdfunding and support from the Young Vic, the National Theatre, and the Royal Court Theatre, we built a second-hand 11m geodesic dome theatre and started running a program every day. Volunteers from across the UK and Europe came to run workshops. Residents – a circus performer from Ethiopia, for example, or a kung fu master from Iran – taught other residents the art forms that they knew. The theatre evolved with the needs of residents and provided a safe space for expression, conversation and connection. We ran writing and theatre workshops, showed films, taught photography, held dance classes. Music from all around the world was showcased and celebrated every night. If the tent was really full, we could fit almost 200 people in there. Once, Shakespeare’s Globe theatre came down to put on a performance and we spilled out into the camp with an audience of over 400.
The Good Chance Theatre was an opportunity for people to share their stories and feel human. For me, going into the Calais refugee camp and facilitating those stories through art was the only way I knew how to take action. I believe in the power of theatre as a vessel to cultivate dignity, and as a way to witness and honour our journeys – human to human.
‘The Good Chance Theatre was an opportunity for people to share their stories and feel human.’ Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed and helpless when confronted with the world’s suffering, but if we each contribute what we know, and embody what we love, every small action adds up. For example, smiling at a stranger, acknowledging a homeless person, or inviting your neighbour in for a cup of tea could be the right action for you. Or you could choose to get more informed, get curious about these very issues on our doorstep – sadly, we don’t have to look far in Australia to see immense human suffering just off the shores of our closed borders. But where there is suffering, there are always kind and brave humans trying to help – like the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Sydney Story Factory or Milk Crate Theatre to name a few.
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When the bare minimum requirements of survival have been met, human beings require a place for expression and creativity. Good Chance Theatre believes expression is a human right. Stories need to be shared and we all need a safe space to be truly seen and heard. Human beings cannot survive when they don’t feel like humans.
What this experience has taught me is that all acts of compassion are a form of activism.
Kirstin Shirling will be in conversation with Guardian Australia features editor Lucy Clark at Antidote at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday 3 September