Furtherfield Gallery
Saturday 15 Sep until Sunday 21 Oct 2018

Private View: Friday 14 September 18:00 – 20:00 (Register)

Open Sat – Sun, 11:00 – 17:00 or by appointment
Admission Free

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Transnationalisms is an exhibition exploring changes in how we think about territory, border and movement in an age of increasing digital connectivity and nationalism. Curated by James Bridle at Furtherfield Gallery from 14th September to 21st October 2018, it is part of a series of events belonging to the EU-funded State Machines project on new relationships between states, citizens and the stateless.

PHYSICAL BORDERS

‘Jus sanguinis’ or ‘right of the blood’ refers to the way Spain aligns physical and geographical bodies by giving people citizenship only if they contain Spanish blood. It is also the name of a performance and installation (2016)  by Peru-born and Spain-dwelling artist, Daniela Ortiz, who arranged a blood transfusion from a Spanish citizen while 4 months pregnant. From deep inside her, infused by liquid Spain, her baby transcends national borders and her own body becomes a complex cultural terrain. The use of blood reminds us of the real violence of immigration laws, while the video installation recalls the ease at which mortal harm can flow through media veins.

Physically traversing Europe, the exhibition arrives by way of State Machine partners Aksioma & Museum of Contemporary Art, Slovenia and Mali salon, Croatia. At Furtherfield Gallery in Finsbury Park it occupies land straddling its own official and vernacular boundaries. Sitting within Islington, Hackney and Haringey, Finsbury Park is described as ‘superdiverse’ with over 180 languages spoken and high levels of ‘churn’ as people come and go.

Daniela Ortiz, Jus Sanguinis, 2016. Photo courtesy of the artist

DIGITAL BORDERS

If Ortiz represents a radically open border, then VPN (2018) by Critical Computer Engineering Group (Julian Oliver, Gordan Savičić, and Danja Vasiliev) is about protection. The work considers how VPNs can ‘sheath’ our private (data) parts during social intercourse online. Audience members will be able to use the repurposed condom machine to select an international destination for rerouting their data and then download a completely undetectable VPN to a USB for personal use. This is the first showing of the work which was commissioned as part of an artwork open call by the State Machines partner organisations.

CULTURAL BORDERS

Journeying ‘home’ to Furtherfield – where it was made and first shown in 2017 – is video installation We Help Each Other Grow by collective They Are Here (Helen Walker & Harun Morrison). It features former Tamil refugee, Thiru Seelan, seen only as his thermal signature from a heat-sensitive camera. He motions to a past and present he has no ‘right’ to – a dance that belongs to Tamil women; a city that belongs to the blood of British people. Yet there he is, at least temporarily, warm and well in both ‘spaces’ at once.

OTHER WORKS INCLUDE

Movables (2017) is a series of images by Jeremy Hutchison which look at the fashionable world of refugee disguise design.

CNI (2017) by Raphaël Fabre is the entirely digital portrait the French government accepted as photographic proof of Fabre for an ID card.

New Unions / After Europe (2016-) by Jonas Staal is a campaign and system for a new trans-democratic union in Europe.

They Are Here, We Help Each Other Grow, 2017. Film Still from Video shot on thermal imaging camera. Photo courtesy of the artists

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

James Bridle is an artist, writer and curator and one of Wired’s ‘100 most influential people in Europe’ (2017). He is  the author of New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future (Verso: 2018). He is based in London.
jamesbridle.com

Critical Computer Engineering Group is a collaboration between Julian Oliver, Gordan Savičić, and Danja Vasiliev. Their manifesto begins: “The Critical Engineer considers Engineering to be the most transformative language of our time, shaping the way we move, communicate and think. It is the work of the Critical Engineer to study and exploit this language, exposing its influence.”
criticalengineering.org

Raphaël Fabre works on the interference of fictions and narrative storytelling in the real world, using techniques ranging from digital 3D technologies to set decoration. Born in 1989, he lives and works in Paris.
raphaelfabre.com

Jeremy Hutchison explores with situational performance in sites of production and consumption – often collaborating with factory employees, migrant labourers, online workers – to explore unequal human relations constructed by global capital. He was recently a member of the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York.
jeremyhutchison.com

Daniela Ortiz generates spaces of tension in which the concepts of nationality, racialization, social class and gender are explored in order to critically understand structures of inclusion and exclusion in society. Daniela gives talks and participates in discussions on Europe’s migration control system and its ties to coloniality in different contexts. Born in Cusco, she lives and works in Barcelona.
daniela-ortiz.com

Jonas Staal has studied monumental art in Enschede and Boston and received his PhD for research on art and propaganda in the 21st century from the University of Leiden. His work includes interventions in public space, exhibitions, theatre plays, publications and lectures, focusing on the relationship between art, democracy and propaganda. He lives and works in Rotterdam.
jonasstaal.nl

They Are Here is a collaborative practice steered by Helen Walker and Harun Morrison (f. 2006). Their work can be read as a series of context-specific games through which they seek to create ephemeral systems and temporary micro-communities that offer an alternate means of engaging with a situation, history or ideology. They are currently based in London and on the River Lea.
theyarehere.net

ABOUT FURTHERFIELD

Furtherfield is an internationally-renowned digital arts organisation hosting exhibitions, workshops and debate for over 20 years. We collaborate locally and globally with artists, academics, organisations and the public to explore digital culture and the changing world we live in. From our unique venues in Finsbury Park we offer a range of ways for everyone to get hands on with emerging technologies and ideas about contemporary society. Our aim is to make critical digital citizens of us all. We can make our own world.

Furtherfield Gallery
McKenzie Pavilion
Finsbury Park, London, N4 2NQ
Visiting Information

The post Transnationalisms curated by James Bridle at Furtherfield Gallery appeared first on P2P Foundation.

April Humble: Every minute, twenty-five people are displaced somewhere in the world — a fourfold increase compared to ten years ago. At the same time, international borders are becoming more and more difficult to cross for the undesired, the persecuted and the poor.

Recent developments in Europe and North America highlight the growing centrality of migration to the political debates and social struggles of the early twenty-first century. In June 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union following a campaign marked by fierce anti-immigration rhetoric. In November that year, Donald Trump won the US presidential elections while dog-whistling white supremacists and boasting of the “great wall” he was going to build at the Mexican border.

These developments were accompanied by a surge in support for right-wing nationalist parties across Europe, right off the back of a major “refugee crisis” that saw over 2.3 million people enter Europe irregularly, 80 percent of them arriving from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan ― all countries suffering ongoing conflict and political instability. According to UNHCR, an unprecedented 65.6 million people worldwide have now been forcibly displaced from their homes.

One factor that is often left out of these political debates, however, is the role played by climate change as an amplifier of push factors behind human migration everywhere. This is particularly true in areas where political, economic and social forces diminish the capacity for adaptation. Climate change will undermine many countries’ ability to support their respective populations, pushing up migration rates across the globe. In a rapidly warming world, the rules of border control clearly need to be rewritten to make migration an option for those fleeing the consequences of climate destabilization in their home countries.

Border Security

Following 9/11, a dangerous love affair blossomed between Western leaders and the notion of border security, against the backdrop of a radical escalation in the Global War on Terror. Today, a decade and a half later, the official response to increased global migration flows is entrenching this narrative ― of migrants as a threat to Western security, society and culture, and of border security as the only possible answer ― in the minds of millions.

In Europe, the recent “refugee crisis” saw the bloc rapidly backtrack on its long-standing pledge to safeguard people fleeing war and persecution worldwide. Barbed wire fences were erected and war ships deployed. In just over a year, security and control had been heightened or reintroduced at more than twenty national borders. The European Union’s contentious agreement with Turkey appointed President Erdoğan as the de facto gatekeeper of Fortress Europe, while absolving the EU of any responsibility towards the migrants and refugees trying to scale its walls.

This disregard for the rights of refugees is by no means limited to Europe. Between 2012 and 2015, for instance, more than 120,000 Rohingya boarded ships in an attempt to flee religious persecution in Myanmar. Thousands were turned away by neighboring states as they drifted at sea, with no country wanting to claim responsibility for their plight. From those suffering abuse, torture and murder at the hands of border guards at the Turkish-Syrian border or the Indian-Bangladeshi border, to the Australian government putting up posters in the cities of South-East Asia warning migrants that they are not welcome, abuse and oppression of migrant populations is increasing across the globe.

Today, there are over seventy securitized borders in the world — five times as many as 25 years ago. Beside Fortress Europe, militarized border security is becoming increasingly common across North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Much of this is part of a broader strategic undertaking by the Western countries to prevent migration flows from reaching their borders. The EU, for instance, has programs of “externalization” — logistically supporting third countries to secure their external borders — from Africa to China to the Caribbean, while Australia has similar programs in Asia and Oceania. The US Army has trained soldiers in border security in over 100 countries, and many leaders in other regions — particularly the Middle East and South Asia — are desperate to get in on the game.

No Way Out

In many parts of the world where social insecurity, political oppression and economic fragility already lace the foundations of society, the disruptive effects of climate change are also starting to take their toll. People’s abilities to survive and prosper are being affected, forcing them to flee their homes and give up on their traditional means of existence. This kind of climate-related migration is rapidly becoming a global phenomenon. From Sub-Saharan Africa to Alaska, from the Andes to the Himalayas, people are already on the move due to changes in temperatures and weather patterns. In 2016, 23 million people were forced to migrate following weather-related natural disasters. That year, the ratio of people fleeing environmental disasters to people fleeing violent conflict was 3:1.

Currently, no international framework exists that is anywhere close to encapsulating all the needs and protecting all the rights of those migrating in a context of climate change. Nor does it look likely that such a framework will be developed any time soon. Taken together, militarized borders and climate change therefore make for a toxic combination, especially in the Global South, where local populations often face the most serious social, economic and political obstacles to climate adaptation.

One striking example of these developments is Pakistan, where droughts, heat waves and floods are becoming an increasingly serious problem. In 2010, a single episode of flash and riverine floods killed 2,000 people and displaced approximately 20 million. Karachi, the country’s economic backbone, which receives one million migrants a year in search of a feasible livelihood, is highly vulnerable to rising sea levels and storm surges. If this city is destabilized as a result of climate change, there are fears that there will be profound effects for the entire country, where lagging infrastructure and socio-economic vulnerability greatly limit the options for adaptation.

At the same time, the possibilities for cross-border migration from vulnerable Pakistan are also severely constrained. The India-Pakistan border fence is 1,958 kilometers long, and there are plans to close the entirety of the border by the end of 2018. Iran is currently reinforcing an ineffective old border barrier, and at the highly militarized border with Afghanistan, Pakistan recently launched its first modern border management system. As the sixth most populous country in the world, the citizens of Pakistan face growing threats under climate change. Unless governments work to recognize cross-border migration as an essential coping mechanism and bilateral plans are created to ensure that this is a safe option, many in Pakistan will face a pressure cooker scenario with literally no way out.

Feeling the Heat

Populations across West and North Africa are already feeling the heat as well. Predictions have suggested that average temperatures in the Sahel could increase by as much as 5 degrees by 2050, with the population expected to grow threefold ― from 100 million to a whopping 300 million ― within the same timeframe. Already suffering from the political crackdown on the Arab Spring and the rise of extremist groups like ISIS, Boko Haram and Al-Shabab, the region is predicted to suffer huge levels of displacement as a result of climate change-induced desertification and water loss.

The EU’s policy of border externalization, meanwhile, is already posing serious challenges to many Sub-Saharan migrants traveling towards the North African countries, hoping to eventually reach European shores. Not only has the Libyan-Italian crossing become the most dangerous in the world ― with the odds of dying en route as high as one in 23 ― but in response to the EU’s demands to stem the flow of migrants, countries such as Libya and Morocco have been rounding up migrants en masse and dumping them in the desert.

Regions where populations are hemmed in by neighboring oppressors will suffer particularly heavily. Take Palestine, for instance, where climate change is believed to cause rising temperatures and water scarcity. Agriculture makes up a large share of economic output, employment and local food security, and is particularly sensitive to temperature increases and droughts. This will have huge knock-on effects on the Palestinian people, whose socio-economic resilience has already been battered by decades of occupation and conflict. Due to the severe restrictions on popular movement in the area, seasonal migration is no longer a viable coping mechanism.

All of this comes at a high social and economic cost for vulnerable populations. The benefits of cross-border migration as a coping strategy have historically been very important. Moving across borders allows families to send one or two members abroad to earn money elsewhere and send it back in remittances, meaning the rest of the family can stay put. This strongly mitigates crisis points, preventing the need for entire families and communities to leave hearth and home behind. Remittances from migrant workers amount to three times the amount of global aid and generally act as a significant poverty alleviator worldwide. Limiting this capacity in favor of an emphasis on adaptation in situ is likely to further aggravate existing pressures on many fragile countries.

Rewriting the Rules

Clearly, then, political debates over migration and border security can no longer take place in isolation from broader considerations of climate justice. Climate change will have the greatest impact on some of the world’s most vulnerable populations, gravely affecting their ability to survive and prosper. With this in mind, we should be fighting for safe cross-border passage as a serious coping mechanism for those living in areas where the capacity for adaptation is particularly low.

Social movements will have an important role to play in this respect. Climate-induced migration has only become an international issue of concern in recent years because of the persistent work of social justice activists and non-governmental groups. Movements mobilizing around refugee rights, border security and climate justice will now need to join forces and exert strong pressure from below to force world leaders to open borders, rather than closing them. Of course, taking radical steps to limit global carbon emissions will be the single most important contribution to easing the pressures on vulnerable populations, but we must be clear that there will be further increases in international migration, and that our struggles must be geared towards enabling orderly resettlement wherever necessary.

The way the term “refugee crisis” has been used in recent years implies a crisis for Europe and the West. The real crisis, however, is faced by those who have been forced to leave everything they have ever known. Climate change is the ultimate game changer in this respect. In extreme times, the rules of the game — including the rules of international migration — will need to be rewritten. This cannot wait for a few years or decades down the line. By then, some of the most dangerous forces of climate destabilization will already have been locked in. We must act on this today, lest we lose millions of fellow human beings to the global threat of climate change, and to the narrow-minded and xenophobic views of world leaders on who has the right to move and who doesn’t.

About the author:

April Humble is Director of Borderlands, a charity that works with refugees and asylum seekers in Bristol. Her background spans climate change and conflict resolution, and she has a particular interest in global border security developments.

Originally published in ROAR Magazine Issue #7: System Change.

Illustration by Kaan Bağcı. Photo by Nicolas Economou

The post Open the Borders! Welcoming Climate Refugees appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Migration and borders, municipalism and the commons are the axes of a Festival of art and politics that invites dialogue and participation

In conjunction with the Madrid European Commons Assembly, part of the P2P Foundation team will be present at the TRANSEUROPA festival. Come join us!

European Alternatives’ (EA) Biennial Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary from October 25th to the 29th with the ‘Convergent Spaces’ proposal in Matadero Madrid, Medialab Prado, Intermediae, CS La Ingobernable and Centro Centro. TRANSEUROPA proposes a series of conferences, workshops, artistic exhibitions, performances, screenings, concerts and political debates. The thematic axes of this edition address the crisis of European borders, proposes the new municipalism in European cities as a potential agent of change and the commons as a political alternative for new governance.

Organised by EA in collaboration with the Spanish collective Zemos98, the Festival is a counterbalance to the dominant discourses of crisis and threat of the unknown. Through art, culture and innovative practices, TRANSEUROPA proposes spaces for dialogue and learning for hundreds of activists from different European countries for an exchange with local citizens.

Speakers

Over five days more than 50 speakers will participate in TRANSEUROPA. Among them, the anthropologist Arjun Appadurai, the philosopher Marina Garcés, Santiago Alba Rico, the Black Lives Matter activist in Denmark, Bwalya Sørensen, and the German Politician Gesine Schwan. German film director Jakob Preuss will present his new film When Paul Came Over the Sea on Thursday 26 at 7 pm at the Cineteca de Matadero, a documentary about the story of Paul’s journey, a migrant from Cameroon who passed through Spain before arriving to Berlin.

Exhibitions, art and thought

In the framework of TRANSEUROPA Matadero Madrid will host the exhibitions Europe as a Refuge and Artivism from the European Margins. Both exhibitions will open in the presence of the artists on Wednesday 25th and Thursday 26th October respectively.

In addition on Friday 27th Audiovisual Source Code will present If I were a black person in a film, by the journalist and president of SOS Racism Moha Gerehou, the live audiovisual performance IDRISSA: Everyday Borders by Metromuster with the Guinean singer Nakany Kanté and a DJ by MotoKiatu, mixing African rhythms with electronic music.

Workshops

Each morning 15 practical workshops will take place, addressing issues of integration and borders (Brexit: building trans-European perspectives or Community Strategies against institutional racism); racism (Top-manta: fight and activism of street sellers in Spain or Stop Islamophobia); feminism, data analysis and visualization, and cybersecurity. Collaborators for these workshops include: Carmen Castro, the collective Eutropian, and Stanislaw Strasburger.

10 years across Europe

Since 2007, TRANSEUROPA has evolved as an artistic, cultural and political festival organized transnationally by European Alternatives. EA is a civil society organization works through its pan-European network throughout the continent to promote culture, equity and democracy beyond the nation state. For the last decade, TRANSEUROPA has operated in a decentralized way, organizing simultaneous meetings in dozens of European cities in parallel to a major festival in a major city. This year, in addition to Madrid, the festival will be present through the TRANSEUROPA OPEN programme in Valencia, Lousame (Coruña), London, Belgrade, Berlin, Montenegro, Ghent (Belgium), Ludwigshafen (Germany), Maribor (Slovenia), Turku (Finland).

Photo by Dave Pinter

The post TRANSEUROPA/Convergent Spaces: alternatives for a Europe in crisis appeared first on P2P Foundation.