BORDERLINES: Art installation in Oslo and Kirkenes
Norwegian – Russian border suddenly appeared from the Parliament towards the Royal Castle.
- Not everyone in Oslo is aware what it means for Norway to have a border to Russia. The idea is to have people reflect on borders, says the artist behind the project Morten Traavik to BarentsObserver.
Click here for all images from the Borderline installation in Kirkenes and Oslo.
The first part of the exhibition opened in the pedestrian street in Kirkenes in connection with Barents Spektakel 2011 festival, this year entitled “Mind the Map.”
A total of 21 pairs of border pillars are placed opposite each other through the centre of Oslo and Kirkenes. Norwegian pillars are yellow and black, while the Russian are red and green.
The installation, called Borderlines, is in cooperation with the Kirkenes based art group Pikene på Broen and you can follow it online.
Artist Morten Traavik has just finished a year-long Artist-in-Residency with the Norwegian Armed Forces and the border pillars used in the installation are the real ones currently under replacement along the 196 kilometer long Norwegian – Russian border in the north.
Morten Traavik says the project is inspired by - among other things - border zones between States and nationalities, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, East and West Berlin, economic zones in the Barents Sea, North and South Korea, Israel and the West Bank, Shia and Sunni, Mars and Venus, business and economy class, centre and periphery, sense and sensibility, too much and not enough, genious and madness, us and them, order and chaos, majority and minority, hip and unhip, Left and Right, art and politics, homo and hetero, grown-up and underage, Apollo and Dionysus, Heaven and Hell, Laurel and Hardy, past and future, to be and not to be.
