​Date: 6 March 2026

Time: 16:30-19:30

Venue: Hall of Architects, Old Town Hall, Prague

Organised by: Integrační centrum Praha, in collaboration with the City of Prague

 

Language: English, with Czech interpretation

 

Format: Short talks and community discussion. Artists, teachers and scholars from different backgrounds will share their work and experience and speak about identity, migration and belonging in Prague.

 

Host: Nancy Castrogiovanni, PhD Candidate

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16:30 - Welcome and Opening Remarks

Speaker: Nancy Castrogiovanni, PhD candidate

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16:35 - Identity, Openness and Liminality: A Reflection on Life Between Cultures 

Speaker: Nancy Castrogiovanni, PhD candidate (community theatre director and writer)

Nancy speaks from her research on migrant identity, exile and the sacred in everyday life. She reflects on how art and creative practice give space to people who live between cultures, turning fracture and uncertainty into moments of meaning. Prague appears as a city where many lives in transition meet, and where this “in between” can be shared through stories, performance and everyday gestures.

 

17:00 - Language and Identity (entrepreneur and painter)

Speaker: Natalia Kotova

How thinking and living in more than one language shapes our sense of self and the way we relate to others. Natalia reflects on accents, code switching and the small choices we make when we speak, and how these shape our experience of belonging in Prague.

 

17:25 - Belonging Through Experiences 

Speaker: Brian J. Callaghan (theatre director, script writer, actor, founder of The Prague Harman Street Players)

How expats build belonging through what they do every day. Brian talks about his work in Prague’s English language theatre scene, how his productions and rehearsal rooms gather different nationalities together, and how shared stories and performances contribute to the cultural life of the city.

 

17:50 - Family, Distance, and Cultural Continuity

Speaker: Rihana Ghavipanjeh ( Rihana SG) (painter and art educator)

How people maintain identity and emotional ties while living far from home, and how personal histories travel with them. Rihana speaks about her journey as an artist between Iran, Asia and Central Europe, and how themes of memory, distance and womanhood appear in her paintings and exhibitions in Prague.

 

18:15 - Short Break 

 

18:30 - Children Growing Up Abroad 

Speaker: Trupti Jobanputra (English teacher at Anglofonní základní škola)

Trupti holds a postgraduate degree in English Literature and a Bachelor’s degree in Education, and has almost a decade of experience teaching children from many different nationalities. A former theatre artist in Mumbai and a trained Kathak dancer, she now brings that creative energy into her classroom in Prague.

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Her contribution will include a short 5-minute theatre performance written and performed by her pupils specially for this event, followed by a talk on how children raised in multicultural environments develop flexible, open identities. 

 

18:55 - Between Essence and Narrative: Philosophical Models of Personal and Collective Identity 

Speaker: Dr Achille Castrogiovanni (PhD in History and International Relations)

Achille starts from a simple question: what do we really mean when we say “identity”? We often talk about it as if it were a thing we have, can lose, defend, or restore. Philosophically, he suggests, it is more helpful to see identity as a problem, a set of tensions between continuity and change, between how we describe ourselves and how others describe us, between freedom and constraint.

 

In his talk he will outline some key philosophical models of personal and collective identity, showing how stories, memories, and shared narratives hold groups together while also creating conflict and exclusion. He will then connect these ideas to contemporary societies that live with more than one loyalty or attachment at the same time, and reflect on Prague as a Central European city where different national, cultural, and migrant identities meet in everyday life.

 

19:20 - Closing Remarks 

Speaker: Nancy Castrogiovanni