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Geography of Lives

Alberto Favaro 2018

Graphic works for Utopian Nights,

  Mdina, Malta, 2018

see publication

https://issuu.com/davidpisani1965/docs/binder2s

Project founded by Valletta 2018 Foundation

Description 

The“Geography of lives” consists in a performance and a series of photos aiming to confute the idea of national borders as being just the linear limits surrounding nations. Contemporary borders actually extend themselves outside and inside countries. They might not necessarily be built with bricks or fences but are still very effective. Those are jurisdictional, administrative, economic and “cultural” limitations, real impediments for migrants to construct a life somewhere and become fully recognized individuals. Far from being just physical barriers, borders could be considered as spaces in themselves and not just the ending limit between spaces. That means that a migrant that crossed a geographical border decades ago could still find himself without full rights to participate in community life, or worst, to be expelled, realizing suddenly that, the border, crossed long ago, was never really crossed, but rather it trapped him. Constantly adjusting itself, the border kept “the intruder “outside, even if his body was geographically inside. Imagining the mapping of the real extensions and thickness of these borders, the most likely configuration should not be a fixed geographical one, but an infinitive number of pockets trapping spaces and bodies in a permanent migration through countries, but never really belonging to them. A portion of “outside” taken “inside”, but not able to access it. As a matter of fact borders do not only discipline space but time as well, allowing the permanence of “the intruder” at one condition: temporality. A requirement that implies the obligation of permanent movement and the impossibility for a stable settlement. 

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