Barriers is a project there is investigate the aesthetics of all the world’s border barriers. The amount of border barriers have increased considerable since 1945. In 1945 there were seven border barriers, in 1989, when the Berlin wall fell, there were fifteen, and today there are seventy-seven around on the globe.
Border barriers does normally have one of three following functions – to keep someone out, someone in or someone separated. Today the majority of border barriers are erected in order to protect property and the economy against spontaneous movements.
I am studying the aesthetics of the barriers by approaching it same way as when the architect are mapping and studying an area. I have chosen to play with watercolours as I think it connotes something more the less innocent and have an image of softness but whereas the issue around border barriers is heavily political loaded and is binary in a very literally sense – either you in or out.
My watercolor drawings are quiet responses to the human being’s tendency to solve problems in a short-sighted way. As I think border barriers only solve acute problems and do not solve the origins of the problems. And by presenting the aesthetics of all the world’s border barriers together I create a room for reflection on contemporary geopolitical tendencies.
L’Afrique du Sud – le Mozambique
Slovenia – Croatia
.