My name is Catarina Garcia and I came from Portugal. I decided to go on ESC as an opportunity to live abroad, and also to try and learn a new possible career.
In September 2019 I got accepted to volunteer at Deutsches TanzfilmInstitut Bremen for a year. Deutsches Tanzfilminstitut Bremen, or TAFI, is a Dance Film Archive with more than 40 000 analog video materials, all about dance or performance art. At TAFI some of my daily tasks were to film dance performances, edit the material and send it to the dance companies and choreographers. Also we constantly work with the analog cassettes, digitize and archive the different material for conservation. I didn’t have a specifically assigned job, because all the volunteers learned how to do a bit of everything like filming, editing, digitalizing, working with the archive, creating presentations, ect.
During this year I had also the opportunity to learn and develop my german, to learn how to fix my bicycle, to live together and work in an international and diverse group and I learn a lot about my own culture and about the culture I was experiencing.
Leaving outside my own country for such a long time made me understand a lot about the way I was raised as a child, made me realize also about my beliefs, and about my privileges as an European Woman. After a year abroad I can see that I changed or I got even stronger some of my political and social points of view.
These projects gave me opportunities I would never get in another way, and I would for sure recommend it for all the people that are looking for some new experiences in their life.
Catarina
Images: Kirsten Tiedemann