On Transnationalisms — The Virtuality of Borders
Curated by James Bridle, the Transnationalisms exhibition brought the works by the artists Julian Oliver, Daniela Ortiz, Jeremy Hutchison, Raphaël Fabre, Jonas Staal and the groups Studio Folder (Marco Ferrari & Elisa Pasqual) and They Are Here (Helen Walker & Harun Morrison). At the conference on the topic of transnationalism, presentations were held by writer and artist James Bridle, journalist Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, artist and net.art pioneer Heath Bunting, chief analyst at the Centre for Peace Studies in Zagreb Gordan Bosanac, cultural studies scholar and writer Aljoša Pužar, and architect Marco Ferrari.
Take a look at the festival programme and exhibition programme here.
People are on the move. Around the world, 65 million people have been forced from home, 20 million are refugees, and 10 million are stateless: denied a nationality and access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment and freedom of movement. At the same time, populist and anti-immigrant parties are leading in the polls across the continent, ethnic groups clamour for independence, and the European Union, which has dissolved borders between 26 nations in the past two decades, is about to shrink for the first time. But even as governments build walls, close borders, cancel passports and deport migrants, people are increasingly organising between nations, new forms of identity are flourishing, and digital technologies are permitting new kinds of citizenship and story-telling to come into being.
The nation state, only 370 years old, is creaking, and with it go the identities that shaped it. But what will replace them? Will borderless technologies and communities continue to flourish, breaking down the barriers between nations and citizens, or will the rising tides of migration, climate change, separatism and nationalism lead to an ever more fractured future? Transnationalisms brings together a group of artists exploring how new technologies, new kinds of community, and new forms of identity are reshaping geography, as well as researchers, thinkers, and activists committed to understanding and shaping this transformation.
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