however borders remain manifest structures. it is not possible for everybody to move from any place to another. while borders in germany and europe were torn down, in the course of the developments following the break-down of the soviet union and others seem heavily contested by other political developments, we can witness new borders raising: between north america and middle- and south america, between europe and africa, between israel and the palestinian territories…

borders are mechanisms of exclusion and at the same time inclusion. they are highly engineered barriers of separation, “smart borders” between prosperous and underprivileged territories. however the lines of separation do not do not form insurmountable obstacles. the artistic works of the project focus on migratory movements of today and of the past which are omnipresent in our historically grown transcultural world.

another focus in my artistic research are borders in social space, e.g. within a city or even smaller fractions within society. individual limits, limits of bodily experience, self-determination, communication and the perception and negotiation of public and private spaces play an important role. the project links in with my ongoing artistic and academic focus: ”contemporary closed circuits – subversive dialogues“, an inquiry into visual surveillance as mechanism of social control.

works of the past years on migration and movement

most of the works are linked to ongoing the exchange project of goethe university frankfurt/germany and the bellas artes, universidad de la republica, montevideo/uruguay from 2005 onwards. see catalogues. website on the project...

i have organised an exhibition during a conference on new english literatues and cultures at goethe universität frankfurt/main on the topic arrivals & departures. works of young artists of the region were shown but also exemplary works of estabished artists from europe and africa. see catalogues.

a globe spins on a lp player. the integrated radio is linked to three speakers that are placed around the player. the old loudspeakers and the bad quality of the radio transmission distort the sound. the radio station AFN, american forces network, is tuned in.

a parcel that has been ripped open lies in a corner on the floor. it shows marks of the postal journey from germany to uruguay. from the opening potatoes have rolled to the floor. in this project the potato is symbolically re-imported to south america. for the project iI helped a german farmer in the harvest season and documented the process photographically. i received some potatoes as a present and attempted to bring them to montevideo. i tried different ways but in the end the seemingly most impossible was the only successful. a parcel sent by airmail reached montevideo through the strictly guarded uruguayan customs. but the re-importation of the potato is a reality on a huge scale. european and north american seed-producers control the global market and export manipulated seed-potatoes to the whole world.

the work was shown in the exhibition "frankfurt...stuttgart... montevideo" in a gallery in the city-centre close to the harbour of montevideo.

the photographs were taken during a visit to montevideo which was part of an exchange programme between universities in frankfurt/main and montevideo, uruguay. the series is compiled of pictures taken along the first two blocks of the perez castellano, a street that leads from the harbour through the old town to the city centre of montevideo. during the time of our exhibition, that took place in number 1526, we lived in that part of the city, got to know people, became familiar with their faces. on the last day of our stay I asked some of the people that live and work in the perez castellano for a portrait.

two years later, in 2007, the photos were brought back to montevideo by the students i had got to know during their return visit. they were fixed to walls, glued to windows and doors of the perez castellano. the photos were given back to the people and to the street perez castellano. photographs/return/montevideo: ignacio rodríguez srabonián, agustina rodriguez...

container/ contenedor - migrations
interaktive sound installation, 2007

the sound installation was shown during the exhibition container/contenedor, the collective exhibition of uruguayian and german students, in an overseas container in the yard of the historical museum frankfurt.

speakers on the floor play interview sequences in different languages. the overlaying sounds fill the container and make it hard to focus on one voice. when the visitor approaches one source, a spot is turned on and the volume of the voice increases. only by getting closer, it is possible to listen to different people that came from various regions to frankfurt/germany. in the transit space the interviewees talk about reasons for and stories of their individual migrations, about their evaluation of their places of origin in relation to their new “home”. the stories are recorded in german and the people’s mother tongues.

linda (”the beautiful” in spanish) was a widely cultivated type of potato in germany. europlant, an internationally operating seed producer, who owns the rights to cultivate linda prefers to replace the long-established plant with newly bred types of potatoes. in the year 2007, linda will be available for the last time.
if you want to help linda, why not just reimport it to south america. give her a new home in uruguay. but you should be aware that this intervention on your side may be risky. it is not allowed to import alimentary goods or seeds to uruguay. but what counts the disobedience of some laws against the survival of linda. prepaid and pre-addressed multiple containing linda, spanish instructions for cultivation, and a call not to let linda die.

a number of quotations are projected on the lower part of a wall. the projectors are arranged in neat rows in front of the projected images. the arrangement does not allow for a closer inspection of the projected material but provides insights into the story of a forced migration from frankfurt via luxemburg to montevideo. the installation uses quotes from only one ‘compensation file’ to draw a picture of the life and fate of an individual person and his family.
the installation is compiled from quotes from the ‘compensation files’ that are stored in the state archive in wiesbaden/germany. the documents were created in the post-war period during negotiations on compensations for victims of the nazi-regime. an unimaginable number of files lie unnoticed and undisturbed in the basement of the archive. these files cast light on personal tragedies, on the scattering of plans and designs for the future of thousands of victims of the nazis. in most cases the files include stories of forced migrations.

to follow the migratory way of the protagonist the work was shown in frankfurt, luxemburg ("passages", exhibition during "luxemburg cultural capital of europe 2007") and montevideo/uruguay.

the form of presentation was adapted to the context: in montevideo the excerpts were shown as a print-out that was glued to walls. the places were next to the house where the person lived and the former post-office, a place where presumably most of his letters were posted.