Dear all,

There is a quite interesting conversation already going on. Thanks for all the interesting links to the various projects between transborder activism, survival aid for refugees and digital self empowerment of migrants. A lot of important things have already been mentioned about the interrelations of free markets, social segregation, digital flow, physical borders and migration as a cultural constant in human history.  

We were asked by Cecilia to contribute some experiences from “Cut The Fence” project to this discussion. So we will start with a short description of this project: 

“Cut The Fence” is a cooperation of Copa & Sordes and the antiracist artspace bblackboxx. 
This nonprofit art space is located next to the refugee camp and the deportation center „Bässelergut“ near the Swiss-German Border. Bblackboxx is run collectively by artists and culture activists since eight years and addresses refugees as well as local people interested in art with activities like the “no border café”, workshops, performances. 
http://xcult.org/copaetsordes 
http://www.bblackboxx.ch

In October 2013 we started “Cut The Fence” as an initiative to spread the idea of cutting down the fences in refugee and migration politics.

We produced a 657 meters long panel of African damask with a fence design.
It is a copy of the 657 meters long fence around the campus of Bässelergut, a former agricultural estate, which was transformed into a refugee camp and deportation center in the last decade. 
In the camp refugees who arrived in Switzerland are waiting for recognition of their asylum request having in front of their eyes the deportation center where the refused refugees (also children) are kept in prison up to 18 month waiting for their deportation. It is a typical example for the “refugee repulsing industries” that developed within the last two decades. A anti-migration machine.

The production of the panel was financed by a crowd funding platform and a company was commissioned, which produces damask fabric exclusively for the African market only a few kilometers away from the deportation center. 

After the start in February 2014 at bblackboxx the fabric fence is now traveling folded in meter layers on a euro-pallet through Switzerland and the Schengen area to be sold and cut in pieces.

The sum of its fragments spread over peoples homes will form a collective art piece and a statement against politics permitting global circulation of merchandises but excluding refugees. 

Bblackboxx will benefit from the money for it upcoming activities.

African damask fabric is produced in Europe especially Germany, Austria and Switzerland exclusively for the African market. The traditional boubous are made of damask. Damask /damascato refers to Damascus, the Syrian capital, as a stopover of this elaborated weaving technique on its way westward, which was invented in China 2000 years ago. Today’s digital technologies originate in damask weaving and damask patterns can be considered as the first digital images of mankind. 

By this way the symbolical cut of a fence leads back to the origin of all kind of progress: Migration and cultural exchange.

During the last two decades great efforts have been made to create equality by the destruction of trade barriers. Free global flow of goods, core issue of real existing neoliberalism, became synonymous with freedom. 
During the same period of time you can observe an opposite evolution concerning everybody’s freedom to move. Migration is only welcome when it means flow of goods like migrant workers, highly specialized expats or tourists. 

But fences are popping up all along the borders where layers of inequality have to be kept apart to maintain voltage for economic flow. Other than the one big Iron Curtain of Cold War separating the world into two halves, this new fences developed into much more complex instruments of enclosing and excluding. National borders, gated communities, private school campus, compounds of transnational companies, refugee camps…
Performing a physical barrier fences are highly charged with symbolic value. Primarily they stage deterrence.

One of the places where this symbolic staging of fences becomes obvious is the refugee camp and the deportation center “Bässlergut” in Basel. Despite situated in the middle of Schengen area and not yet touched by the flood of refugees it performs to be part of Schengen external border.

The next two fence cutting events will take place the 12th and 13th of december in eastern Switzerland in the St. Gallen Textile Museum and in the Zeughaus Teufen in the canton of Appenzell (AR).
http://www.textilmuseum.ch 
http://www.zeughausteufen.ch
The area is the center of swiss textile industries, so we are expecting a lot of interesting discussions around the euro-pallet of fence.
We will let you know about them on this list.

Best
Birgit & Eric