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M6: Intermundia: Mediterranean Without Borders
Ana Dana Beroš
Sabine Rethore
Abstract
Intermundia, a curatorial research project, questions alternating border-scapes of trans-European and intra-European migration. The project depicts the case of Lampedusa as a metonym of contemporary ‘detention conditions’ at the entry to Fortress Europe. Lampedusa is a textbook example of an ‘empty space’ arising at geopolitical crossroads, where socially marginalized communities are being formed, be it newcomers or indigenous population. In the contemporary moment of the imperative of mobility, which is compatible with the imperative of ‘work flexibility’, the forced territorial migrations of precarious but very often highly educated workers are parallel to the wanderings and detentions of illegal migrants. The modern ‘circulants’ see themselves as itinerants, moving to take temporary jobs, living on the edge of uncertainty, on the edge of debt. This human condition of a ‘denizen’, a half-citizen, a migrant, must propose a new historical consciousness. Instead of observing the island of Lampedusa as consolidated institution of ‘the waiting room’, as jailed zone in the middle of conflict, Intermundia attempts a post-human perspective in order to investigate the ambivalent state of ‘in-betweenness’ and the (im) possibility of cultural translation. Through an evocative sound and light installation, together with a political narrative presented in a book, the project tries to induce a layered understanding of the world. A layered understanding of the world, or rather, an understanding of the alternative worlds that surround us. Inducing Verfremdungseffekt, the project asks for re-action, and not simply empathy, drowning the observer into a stuggle for ‘bare life'.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
185562
URI
Publication date:
1.7.2015.
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