UCL European Institute Strengthens European Literary Ties at Passa Porta Festival 2025

The European Literary Map of London (ELML) exhibited at Brussels’ Passa Porta Festival 2025, where the UCL European Institute's Director Dr. Uta Staiger moderated a discussion on location and storytelling with award-winning authors David Nicholls and Peter Terrin.

The UCL European Institute’s ELML captivated audiences at Brussels’ 2025 Passa Porta Festival, the largest multilingual literary event in the Benelux. Hosted at Muntpunt Library, just steps from the historic La Monnaie Opera House, the exhibition—supported by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)—invited visitors to experience London through the eyes of European writers, artists, and intellectuals.

Developed in collaboration with UCL’s Faculty of Arts & Humanities and the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), the ELML merges a dynamic online archive with a travelling interactive display. Using Dr. Duncan Hay’s Memory Mapper toolkit, the project charts over 100 entries in 25+ languages, transforming literary encounters with London into a layered digital narrative. At Passa Porta, this digital foundation came to life through a physical exhibition loaned from the UK Mission to the EU.

Among the entries was Belgian poet Émile Cammaerts’ Discoveries in England (1930), which captures his decades-long relationship with London after relocating to the UK in 1908. Written in English for a British audience, the memoir reflects his perspective as a cultural intermediary: a Professor of Belgian Studies at the University of London, a playwright, and a poet whose wartime work Carillon, set to music by Sir Edward Elgar in 1914, echoed the city’s resilience during the First World War. The entry, pinned to Senate House where Cammaerts taught, hints at how he navigated London as a space of artistic exchange, translating works by Ruskin and Chesterton while bridging Belgian and British literary traditions.

The exhibition highlighted the ELML’s mission to illustrate London’s enduring relevance for European culture and help diversify how we collectively imagine and understand both London and Europe. By weaving multilingual stories into urban landscapes, the project challenges singular narratives of place. Inspired by its open framework, attendees were encourged by festival oganisers to propose locations for a Literary Map of Brussels, recognising how community-driven initiatives can transform cities into living archives of shared heritage.

On the second day of the festival, UCL European Institute Director Dr. Uta Staiger moderated a panel with authors David Nicholls (One Day) and Peter Terrin (De bewaker), exploring the interplay of physical and imagined spaces in literature. The discussion traversed topics from maps and heterotopias to the evocative power of settings as diverse as Yorkshire, Monte Carlo, and abandoned basements. Reflecting on Bluesky, Dr. Staiger described the conversation as a “wonderfully rich” examination of how place shapes stories, and stories shape place.

 

The ELML’s presence at Passa Porta exemplifies UCL’s commitment to merging digital innovation with cultural diplomacy. By curating non-UK European perspectives on London, the project diversifies interpretations of the city while offering a blueprint for global civic engagement. As the Institute continues to seek contributions, the ELML reaffirms literature’s power to transcend borders, transforming cities into sites of collective memory and possibility.

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