Ursula Biemann
Artist, theorist and curator. Researcher at Institute for Theory of Art and Design, HGK, Zurich and the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts Geneva.
The Maghreb Connection – Movements of Life across North Africa
Art and research project focusing on systems and modalities of migratory movements which constitute the Maghreb and Mediterranean area. From a range of aesthetic positions, the project seeks to develop discursive and visual representations of the growing complexity of North African mobility in relation with the development of the European Union.
In parallel to the agreements about “free movement” inside the European Union, its external borders are increasingly being sealed. In this new scheme, the Maghrebi migrants and those sub-Saharans who use the Maghreb as transit zone are perceived as a threat. While this notion of an invasion – largely spread by the European media – seems to legitimate the restrictive political measures concerning immigration, the European economy reaches further down into the Maghreb to establish giant transnational logistic centres or to find cheap labour for outsourced production. At this point, the relations between Europe and Africa have entered a new post-colonial phase.
In the Maghreb, migration flows rely on – and intersect with – other forms of organized mobility such as existing nomadic movements, tourism, roaming martial formations including rebel groups, and migration related humanitarian personnel. The junction of these movements generates synergies, conflicts, and sometimes surprising alliances. THE MAGHREB CONNECTION aims to develop a visual representation of the connective space that emerges in the process. This geographic approach (geography being understood as a signifying system that allows us to understand the relation between subject, movement and space) focuses on specific zones of transit migration, such as Agadez in Niger, Lampedusa off the Tunisian shore, Oujda and Tangier in Morocco, Laayoune in the Western Sahara and Cairo as a destinations for migrants coming through the Suez canal. After in-depth research and investigation, the artists have developed works under various forms, such as cartography, video, photography, text or animation.
The collaborative research project includes artists and theorists from Cairo, Morocco, Spain and Italy as well as art researchers from the esba envionment in Geneva. The exhibition launches in Townhouse Gallery, Cairo in December 2006, before travelling to the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva in February 07 and to further stations in Europe.
