Walls and Border Art: The Politics of Art Display
Abstract
This detour through art aims at demonstrating the performative function of contemporary walls and barriers, designed to impose a geopolitical vision through landscape changes. The text assesses the link between art and borders by formulating the hypothesis that a “border art” (art on the border, art born from the border, art against the border, etc.) is emerging. It tries to understand how the closing up of a border not only reactivates cultural production on an international border, but also transforms the latter's meaning. On the US–Mexico border, for instance, the building of the security fence since 2006 seems to have been accompanied by a strong artistic upsurge. This can be nuanced by analyzing the changes in the nature of artistic production, with more mobile works, marked by a strong presence of videos and performances, as if the fixity imposed by the line requires a fluid creative answer.
... Furthermore, it addresses how APF practices can embody the multiple dimensions of borders visually, aurally and haptically. It, therefore, highlights APF's contribution to acknowledging the border as a liminal site where colonial difference is exposed (Anzaldúa, 1987) through the collection, creation and assemblage of on-the-ground footage that functions as border images/narratives (Schimanski & Nyman, 2021) and border art (Amilhat Szary, 2012). In doing so, it offers a reflection on the methodological implications and ethical challenges arising from three APF workshops involving people who have migrated from Cameroon, Guinea Conakry, Mali, Nigeria, D.R. Congo, Angola, Ghana, Morocco, Western Sahara, Pakistan, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia, Nicaragua and Spain. ...
By examining the border town of Tijuana, Mexico, we explore the artistic production in this distinctive migratory landscape. We seek to answer a central question: What insights does art provide about migration that traditional social sciences do not? Due to its geopolitical location, Tijuana serves as a crossroads for thousands of individuals who confront the stark contrast between their aspirations to enter the United States and the harsh realities of border securitization that impede their access. These contradictions create a fertile environment for diverse and rich artistic expression. We highlight three key moments that establish Tijuana as a vibrant hub attracting artists from around the globe. Among these moments, we focus more deeply on one that emphasizes the active participation of migrants in artistic projects initiated by Civil Society Organizations and migrant shelters. Notably, we examine the project “Jugamos a Leer” (Let’s Play to Read), which employs reading and playful, creative writing as pedagogical tools. This project aims to foster peace, identity, belonging, and memory among groups facing vulnerable circumstances, especially within migrant communities. We believe these projects enable individuals to present themselves as whole persons rather than being confined to a single identity, such as “deported,” “asylum seeker,” or “economic migrant.” These inclusive spaces allow participants to temporarily set aside their everyday challenges. Furthermore, by appealing to a fundamental aspect of humanity—creativity—participants, including those migrating without proper documents and those awaiting immigration procedures, can recognize and connect with each other’s humanity.
This research advances a methodological framework for developing predictive models to guide investment strategies in contemporary art across the post-Yugoslav Wars Balkan region. The study examines key determinants of artwork valuation and risk profiles in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia using a mixed-methods approach that synthesizes meta-analysis, expert Q-sort analysis, and hierarchical cluster analysis. The empirical findings demonstrate the enduring influence of the Yugoslav Wars on art market dynamics, underscoring the significance of sustainable intelligence principles and technological innovation in risk mitigation strategies. The analysis identifies critical valuation determinants, including artistic recognition, sociopolitical stability, and cultural significance, while establishing distinct market segments characterized by differentiated risk-reward profiles. The proposed framework incorporates geopolitical risk indicators, artwork and artist attributes, sustainable investing criteria, and technological enablers, emphasizing machine learning algorithms for market forecasting and portfolio optimization. While this framework constitutes a substantial advancement in modelling art investment strategies within post-conflict contexts, limitations persist regarding data availability, model interpretability, and ethical considerations. The study demonstrates the framework's potential to generate value while contributing to cultural heritage preservation and socioeconomic development in the Balkan region, establishing a foundation for subsequent scholarly inquiry into art market analysis within post-conflict societies.
Despite a burgeoning interest in the “visual” in migration and border research, refugees’ own perspectives of how they represent their experiences of struggles with/against borders through paintings remain underinvestigated. This article seeks to fill this gap by providing a close and contextual understanding of refugees’ perceptions and their first-hand experiences of their struggles with borders with reference to critical border studies and visual approaches. Drawing on qualitative analysis of the paintings produced by en route refugee artists at the Hope Project on the Greek island of Lesvos, the article dissects the emerging visual narratives and practices. The article exposes three common narratives from the paintings regarding how the artists recount the perilous journeys of refugees from home toward the European Union, their everyday life constrained in Lesvos, and their future aspirations in a tide of freedom and uncertainty. These common narratives illustrate a sense of continuity between the past, present, and future of refugees’ migratory and life trajectories interrupted by the European border(ing) regime. As the article illustrates, the paintings reveal how refugees as socio-political agents challenge the state borders built against their mobilities and, in doing so, they also defy the symbolic borders fabricated against their identities. Despite a burgeoning interest in “visual” migration and border research, refugees’ own representations of their experiences of struggles with/against borders through paintings remain underinvestigated. In this article, I provide a close and contextual understanding of refugee perceptions and their first-hand experiences of struggles with borders, while highlighting the political significance of refugee-produced artworks in borderlands. Inspired by critical border studies and visual approaches, I draw on qualitative analysis of 70 paintings produced by en route refugee artists at the Hope Project on the Greek island of Lesvos, dissecting the emerging visual narratives and refugees’ creative practices. Analysis exposes three common narrative themes of the paintings: the perilous journeys of refugees from their homes toward the European Union, their everyday life constrained in Lesvos, and their future aspirations in a tide of freedom and uncertainty. These themes illustrate a sense of continuity between the past, present, and future of refugee experience, interrupted by the European border(ing) regime. These narratives reveal that even seemingly depoliticized spaces, namely art workshops and paintings, can become hyper-politicized, recounting how refugees as socio-political agents challenge the state borders constructed to manage refugee mobility and defy the symbolic borders targeting their identity and political subjectivity. Keywords: refugee artworks, migrant agency, European border regime, bordering, Greece, Moria.
Common sense would suggest that globalisation signifies the end of walls. In fact, new systems of fenced boundaries are being built all over the world, and walls are even proliferating within cities. This paper seeks to analyse "teichopolitics" - a new word derived from Ancient Greek teichos meaning "city wall" - I.e. the politics of building walls. Security Issues seem to be an obvious factor, but economic aspects are also important. Building walls is a source of profit for the security and construction industries. Developers and large companies, as well as governments and individuals, therefore have their own strategies that are contributing to the proliferation of barriers.
Border security has been high on public-policy agendas in Europe and North America since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York City and on the headquarters of the American military in Washington DC. Governments are now confronted with managing secure borders, a policy objective that in this era of increased free trade and globalization must compete with intense cross-border flows of people and goods. Border-security policies must enable security personnel to identify, or filter out, dangerous individuals and substances from among the millions of travelers and tons of goods that cross borders daily, particularly in large cross-border urban regions. This book addresses this gap between security needs and an understanding of borders and borderlands. Specifically, the chapters in this volume ask policy-makers to recognize that two fundamental elements define borders and borderlands: first, human activities (the agency and agent power of individual ties and forces spanning a border), and second, the broader social processes that frame individual action, such as market forces, government activities (law, regulations, and policies), and the regional culture and politics of a borderland. Borders emerge as the historically and geographically variable expression of human ties exercised within social structures of varying force and influence, and it is the interplay and interdependence between people's incentives to act and the surrounding structures (i.e. constructed social processes that contain and constrain individual action) that determine the effectiveness of border security policies. This book argues that the nature of borders is to be porous, which is a problem for security policy makers. It shows that when for economic, cultural, or political reasons human activities increase across a border and borderland, governments need to increase cooperation and collaboration with regard to security policies, if only to avoid implementing mismatched security policies.
Cédric Parizot, From One Wall to Another: the Separation as Seen by the Israelis (2002-2010)
Israel’s West Bank wall has not achieved its intended purpose of creating a territorial divide between Israelis and Palestinians. The wall is unfinished, yet its apparent length is deceptive because of the existence of various other checking devices (check points, electronic sensors, an earth-covered “trace road”, Israeli settlements, etc.). Based on an ethnographic study, this article considers the various factors that, in spite of this, have led a great many Israelis to internalize the idea of a separation from the Palestinians.