"Moving Frontiers" : the history which can be read in space.
From the Baltic to the Adreatic Sea, the border controls have ceased since December 2007 along a line of over 3000kms in the center of Europe. The exhibition „Moving Frontiers“ provides the visitor with a part of the equipment gathered „in situ“ along the frontier from 2006 to 2009. The exhibition goes with the visitor through the exploration of the places, from visible to unvisible, from palpable to impapable.
The frontier makes an amazing research subject : a geographic line mark, it represents the extremity of a nation. 2 dimentionnal, it has a measurable length but no width. An abstract line, the frontier however designates a place in informal language. It keeps up this paradox between space and concept, material and immaterial, the frontier lays as a complex system.
More than anywhere else, the question about the connection between space and representation, place and memory occurs. Historical events and distance held off established by the separation have sometimes given significance to insignificance : all of a sudden, in the eyes of the inhabitants of a Czech village, a simple gate embodies by itself the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Russian tanks in 1968. A paper factory built by the Germans on today's Polish territory seems to sum up the shifting of a frontier and of a whole country. The few stones covered by the vegetation of a woods are the remains of a Sudeten German village now disappeared.
The exhibition emphasizes 7 selected places out of the 238 analyzed during the „Frontier Survey“. Through the numerous supports suggested (videos, cards, photographs, texts, film extracts or items gathered on the premises) it tries to offer and share resources to understand the different aspects and stakes of these so unusual places.
Places and dates :
"Maison de l'Architecture et de la Ville de Lille“ (Architecture and Town Institution of Lille) from March 31st until Mai 23rd 2009 (as part of Lille 3000)
Baden-Baden from the 17th to the 30th October 2009 (as part of the event "Architekturtage“)
Idea and conception:
Atelier Limo
Production:
"Maison de l'Architecture et de la Ville de Lille“ at www.mav-npdc.com (Architecture and Town Institution of Lille)
Scenography:
L. Smagghe Office (www.smagghe.co.uk)