I am Séverine Dehon and I am the Executive Producer of Belgians in America - SignMyCar! Tour.
SignMyCar! is is a interactive and multimedia documentary on the Belgian community living in the United States. I go live for a few day with fellow Belgians to document their lives. After each interview, participants sign my car! The reader can then go online and interact with the car: when they click on a signature, they discover the Belgian American story behind it. Stories are a mixture of photo essays, podcast interviews and video documentary (www.signmycar.org). I have already traveled 15,000 km and met more than 250 people on my journey since 2014.
This documentary blends together videography, integrative design and participatory art. It has a format that has never been done before. Not only does it bring communities together during "car signing events", but it opens up windows to the world. It builds a bridge of intercultural understanding and gives the reader an opportunity to grap what it means to leave your home country behind and reinvent yourself somewhere else. Through the spectrum of the Belgian Community in the US, SignMyCar! talks about the joys, the excitements but also the challenges of being an immigrant.
SignMyCar!'s core values are intercultural dialogue and openness to the world. Those values are also the core values of my home region, Wallonia. Building bridges among cultures is my priority in everything I do as a company as well as a person. I grew up in Arlon, Wallonia. Internationality was never far away from me. I grew up 10min away from Luxembourg, 30min away from Germany and 40min from France. My home region has shaped me into who I am today. I am very proud of being a brand ambassador for Wallonia.be.
You can help SignMyCar! by making a donation to our GoFundMe page (www.gofundme.com/signmycar) or you can contact me at sev@signmycar.org to inquire about our different sponsorship programs. I am also looking for more Walloon participants and companies to interview.
See you on the road!
Séverine Dehon
Executive Producer
Belgian In America - SignMyCar! Tour