Exhibition view ´Baustelle Europa,´ Kunsthaus Dresden, 2016

1/4 G (a generation in their mid-twenties floating voguing a national border-stone approximately 6/25 m into the country)


2014

Photo (55 x 33 cm), border-stone, performance, object picture frame, poster collage


In 2014, smartphone with a map service in hand, I wandered along various borders of European nation-states. I wanted to know what physically could still be found there. I was specifically interested in sections, where demarcation lines weren’t of geographic nature. In part, these cut through fields and grasslands and apart from border-stones every couple of hundred meters nothing much can be observed. The markings seemed like outdated, now digitized, bureaucratic remnants. Would it make a difference if these stones would sit a couple of meters to the left or to the right? With this question in mind I displaced them by 6 / 25m each. An act gone unnoticed? 

I undertook my excursion conscious that I am part of a generation, which increasingly operates across borders and which through the use of the internet and global consumer goods feels intuitively internationally connected. It seemed that national particularities and differences tended to dissolve and borders became more permeable.

Since 2014 this situation has changed significantly. National and nationalistic perspectives and interests have once again gained in importance and fights about territory are erupting anew. The influx of refugees is increasing and border fences are being put up. The discrepancy between the shaping of economic, legal, and cultural spaces is resulting in protectionist developments that had no longer been deemed possible. A process that changes, questions and challenges positions.

Postercollage