Where am I?

We are students and instructors working across two universities—Masaryk University (Brno, Czechia) and DePaul University (Chicago, USA)—in a shared Global Learning Experience. Over the coming weeks, mixed international teams will collaborate to create short non-fiction films in an experimental documentary spirit. Our topic for this iteration is BELONGING. Not belonging as a slogan, but as a lived texture: in public spaces, in institutions, in routines, in language, in neighborhoods, in what feels “normal,” and in what suddenly doesn’t. We’re interested in the small social moments that reveal larger structures—how culture, history, and values show up in everyday life. This is not only a filmmaking project. It’s also an intercultural exchange built into the work itself. “Experimental” can mean different things in different contexts; so can documentary ethics, authorship, and what respectful representation looks like. Part of our task is to learn those differences—without flattening them—and to translate them into creative decisions we can stand behind. What will happen here Each week, every team will publish one public post—short, readable, and reflective. Think of these posts as field notes + small essays: a record of how the project is evolving and how our understanding of belonging changes when we compare Brno and Chicago. If this blog does its job, it won’t produce one clean definition of belonging. Instead, it will show belonging as something we test, misread, learn, and sometimes repair—together. Welcome in! If you’re reading from outside the course: welcome. You don’t need to know our syllabus to follow along. Just start with the question we’re starting with: Where am I—and what does that question reveal about belonging?