Borderlines

Lara Almarcegui, Rossella Biscotti, Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan, Willie Doherty, Nuria Güell, Ruth E Lyons, Amalia Pica, Khvay Samnang, Santiago Sierra, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor

Borderlines draws attention to the ownership of the earth beneath our feet, underwater realms, the rules governing the international movement of goods, nation-states, the UK border in Ireland, financial sovereignty, tribal territories, anarchic polar exploration and the world-wide distribution of natural resources. Conceived to coincide with the UK’s scheduled exit from the EU, Borderlines offers imaginative ways of representing and thinking about frontiers, at a time when very real borders between the UK and Europe are being proposed.

Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan have three works in the exhibition. Monument to Another Man’s Fatherland reflects on the story of the Pergamon Altar, now in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, in relation to the plight of Turkish migrants hoping to enter the EU, just as the repatriation of the Parthenon (Elgin) marbles reappears in public debate as a result of the Brexit negotiations. Another work features blocks of sugar shown alongside a complex story of sugar exports and trade tariffs. The third film work, particularly poignant in the context of the Brexit campaign’s close alignment with the UK fisheries, charts the rise and fall of the Urk (Dutch) fishing community after their inland sea was dammed to create land for development. Lara Almarcegui explores the ownership of mineral rights, unearthing how the land beneath our feet is governed, while Rossella Biscotti’s research into the implications of her tipping a huge slab of marble overboard into international waters creates a layered picture of the different frontiers of the sea. A more ancient sea is evoked in the salt bowls made by Ruth E Lyons, all carved from salt mined from a deposit that dates back millions of years to the Zechstein Sea, stretching from Ireland to Poland. Willie Doherty reflects on the border where Ireland and Northern Ireland meet, meditating on the dramatic impact that Brexit might have on points on the road, haunted by memories of the militarised border in place before the Good Friday Agreement. Nuria Güell presents a consultancy that offered citizens of the PIIGS nations bailed out by the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF the opportunity to perform fiscal disobedience based on the tax avoidance schemes used by the super-rich, commenting on debt, obedience and control within the EU. Amalia Pica makes images from the stamps she has collected as she encountered the bureaucracy surrounding international mobility and citizenship acquisition, while Khvay Samnang interprets his understanding of the Chong people’s embodied knowledge of the land and its regions, recreating movements through collaboration with a dancer used to define tribal territories in Cambodia. Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor show the globe as a patchwork of dominant resources – industries, minerals or labour – and finally, Santiago Sierra places the anarchist flag at the North and South Poles.

Curated by Tessa Giblin, Director of Talbot Rice Gallery.

Supported by Creative Scotland, the Mondriaan Fund and Edinburgh College of Art.

Talbot Rice Gallery is the art gallery of the University of Edinburgh. A solo exhibition of Samson Young will open on 25th July, in partnership with MUMA, Melbourne, and the group exhibition The Extended Mind will open at the end of October. Dexter Sinister have just completed a digital commission, Black Whisky (Screensaver) which has been disseminated across the University, and can be downloaded for free here (a gift from us all to you all). The current Talbot Rice Residents, Aideen Doran, Sulaïman Majali, Stephanie Mann, Rosie O’Grady and Tako Taal will be joined by 5 more artists living in Scotland following an Open Call this summer, just as the TRG exhibition, At the Gates, opens at La Criee in Rennes.