(soft music)
- My name is Eva Antoshek,
and I would like to welcome you to the
second part of our talk on border artifice.
For those of you who started with my
first part on the US-Mexico border,
you are familiar with some of the terms for both of you
for whom this is the first presentation.
I would like you to conduct several activities or a few activities.
In fact, the first task is to read the keywords
on border art and border artifice at the MigraMedia website,
and to think about most important features of these concepts.
Then task number two is the question.
So how can border artifice be related to representations of migrations?
And I would want you to note down your ideas.
Then I would want you to watch the presentation.
And after watching, I would want you to think
about the connections between different examples
of border artifice, preferably from different countries.
But if you only watch this presentation also,
you may think about what links these examples of border artifice.
And the final task is food for thought.
Do you think that these examples,
these actions have a power to challenge the divisive power of borders?
Can they actually function as a call for action
to encourage solidarity toward border crossers towards migrants?
So let us begin.
First of all, let's start with the definitions.
So the definition of artivism, as Kateryna Comey suggests, analyzes,
it is a neologism, which is the result
of a fusion of the words art and activism, and conveys its hybridity.
According to Aladrovico, artivism is defined
as, "a hybrid form of art and activism,
which has a semantic mechanism to use art
as a means towards change and social transformation.
" It's closely related to similar terms,
such as creative activism, artistic
activism, political art, and activist arts,
but differs in a sense that it assigns equal importance
to artistic creation and sociopolitical action,
highlighting, "an organic relationship between art and activism.
" Comey identifies key features of artivism,
quoting Martins and Campos, which include,
"the subversive nature of diverse
artworks produced by artists, activists,
through which they criticize the status
quo, the development of projects that aim
to empower stigmatized and overexposed individuals,
and the fact that artivist actions take place
outside the structures of the art market and against its institutions.
" Ewa Aladrovico, Dmitry Naikova-Samova, and Olga Bailey,
describe artivism as, "a new language,
which appears outside the museums and art academies,
moving towards urban and social spaces.
" According to them, artivism is based on the recovery
of artistic activity for the purpose of immediate social intervention,
and in artivism, art invades spaces and spheres of activity
traditionally reserved for expressive omission,"
end of quote, which also includes the border.
And as I also talk in my previous presentation,
we may also say that border artivism
is a subcategory of border art in that sense.
So here you have the examples of border artivism
from the border between Poland and Ukraine.
And the second part of my presentation is devoted to that space.
Let us start.
(mouse clicking)
The Polish-Ukrainian borderlands are a very specific space,
similarly to other borderlands, of course.
It is an area where two great cultures of East and West met,
where two spiritualities have made significant contributions
to European culture shaped over the centuries.
The spiritual space of this region and cultural space of this region
was the result of centuries of mutual interaction
between the Polish-Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian, and Jewish cultures,
which is also reflected in architecture and arts.
So we may say that the art of the area
and architecture of the area broadly defined
is the special expression of cultural interaction.
The consequence of historical events in the
area were radical changes in this uniform
and yet diverse cultural landscape of the borderlands.
Because after World War II, the state border divided many border towns,
as a result of which contacts and ties
between communities and families disintegrated.
As a result of a change in the course of the borders,
many towns and villages became border towns and peripheries or margins.
A number of towns and villages dramatically changed their appearance.
Some of them became either completely or partially deserted
because of a deportation of residents
in various directions to the East and the West.
Until today, there are still many people living
with a prevailing sense of a suffering
and injustice experience as a result of wartime and post-war actions.
Then in 1960s, state agricultural farms, also known in Polish as PGRs,
were established in place of depopulated villages.
And they in turn were populated with people brought in
from distant regions, which contributed to the lack
of identification of residents with their locality.
Marginality, lack of prospects and occupation
caused more ambitious and capable young people to leave.
So they would leave either for larger cities or abroad.
At the same time, what is emphasized about this region
is its unique potential character, including
tourism potential, resulting from this multicultural
and multi-ethnic nature of a borderland.
And also because of environmental
characteristics, it's a very, very clean area.
To take advantage of this potential,
activism on the border between Poland and Ukraine started.
It all started with European Days of Good Neighborhoods
that took place for the first time on the border in 2004.
As you can see on the slide, people from both sides of the border
would cross the border river, the River Bug.
There was an inflatable bridge put up for the sake of those days.
And there were all kinds of concerts.
People would also share food
and they could move from one side of a border to another.
Several artists from the Lublin region
and also artists from outside of Poland decided to continue this work.
And what you can see here is the example
of Jaroslav Koziara's "Swobodny przepływ,"
which can be translated as "Free Flow.
" He has installation that he created on the Polish-Ukrainian border
in the vicinity of Horodyszcze Uchrynów.
The two fish-shaped forms of several hundred meters
were plowed with a tractor and sown first
with phacelia seeds, half on the Polish side,
half on the Ukrainian side, will symbolically cross the border.
And as you can see here on the right-hand
side, you have the stages of a project
where the artists sowed phacelia seeds when they grew,
and then later on where they were cut
when they were mowed by the tractor.
When you look at them from above,
you can see that one of the fish-shaped creatures
is facing the Polish side, the other one is facing the Ukrainian side.
So the symbolism and the message seem easy to guess.
It was followed up with other examples by other examples.
For example, here you can see Jan Sajdak's
"Migracja o Migracjon" from the 2011 Landart Festival edition
because they are all examples of Landart Festival.
They are part of this Landart Festival taking place on the border,
where we can see those ant-like creatures
resembling aliens from science fiction movies.
And by the way, an alien is often a
term that is used to refer to migrants.
At the same time, those insects can move across the border
freely, unlike bigger animals, for example,
which implies that migration is nothing
extraordinary, exceptional, or threatening.
It's always existed, and migratory movements are part of human history.
Another example, "Burning Tree" from 2019 edition.
that is a small island.
I don't know if it's clearly visible here on the Bug River,
so right in the middle of a border, and there is a tree.
The tree is dead.
So the artist decided to put textile flames
that used renewable energy and glue at night.
And therefore, it looks as if this tree were on fire.
This refers in the artist's own words
to the ecological disaster that is awaiting us.
And the burning tree quote, "Stands at the very edge of Europe,
like an accusation thrown in the faces of
decision makers, ignoring climate problems,
a prophetic symbol of a burning Amazon forests.
" End of quotes.
And the last example, "Daisaku Ueno's
Border Tea Room" from 2019 edition,
where the artist built a hut from bamboo shoots
and Clay, and put it right on the border.
The artist comes from Japan, and he himself admits that in Japan,
the border is marked only by the sea, so it's invisible.
Therefore, he coming to this border that is quite visible,
decided to put this tea pavilion on a frontier, because as he admits,
the tea ceremony is very important in Japan.
It's quote, "Unifying combining artistic creativity,
sensitivity to nature, religious thought, and social exchange.
" End of quotes.
Therefore, he wanted to put such a tea room right
on the border, because if a border divides people,
there should be a tea room next to it, quote unquote,
where people could celebrate this important ceremony together.
All these examples, as you can see here,
share this common denominator that I
mentioned at the beginning of my presentation.
They aim at challenging this divisive power of border.
They want to reconnect people from both sides of a border.
They want to make this community one again,
and they also indicate the important
questions that are related to the border.
The questions of migration, but also the questions
of, for example, ecological, environmental disaster.
In that sense, they take the art out of the
museums and getting communities involved,
communities from both sides of a border,
but also the viewers who can see those examples on the Internet.
They encourage us to undertake a dialogue, cooperate, work together,
and in this way, rewrite the story of this
contentious space from an alternative perspective.
Thank you very much.
(gentle music)