Visual Arts

This art project, based on research about the complicated contexts of national borders, is a comprehensive response to the social situation under the shadow of nationalism, as well as a reflection on the insidious and insistent influence of nationalism on policy, our social condition, political identity, social media, education, all the way up to the way we name ourselves, the language we speak and other features of our daily lives, so as to trace the trajectories of life in-between political borders. How does a life experience, cope with and confront the notion of being within national borders? Is it possible for a life to pursue its own path and assume an identity of its own, shaping something new from the complexity and diversity of social life? Can art practice aid us in re-evaluating the ways in which borders, nations, identities and individuals are thought and spoken about? Is it at all possible to re-think indigeneity and the bonds that root ‘us’ to national territory?

This project does not attempt to offer a conclusive answer to these questions, nor does it treat the exhibition as a definitive display of results. Rather, through a series of experimental endeavors- art practices, web publications, forums, workshops, screenings and exhibitions, this project will make a beginning of discussing the relationship between political borders and individual lives, so as to uncover possibilities of connection between lives divided by social structures. In this project, we will focus on microscopic narratives that offer a means to deconstruct grand political discourses, revealing the potentiality of life between their fractures. We are inviting artists, researchers, scholars and every person who bears a name for dialogue, reflection and re-connection.