Project Borders Vision – 2013

Short project description
Fully interactive exhibition that explored multi-dimensional borders of the audience, it combined lessons from camera lending projects and previous exhibitions into a visionary and experimental display of Bordr methods and concepts that paved the way for the creation of the Bordr organization. The exhibition also showed borders crossed by participants in the Across African Borders, Project Borders Queens, Stateless in Jordan, and Borders of Dals Långed camera lending projects.

The exhibition was held at the Steneby School of Design and Crafts, Sweden, November 9 – December 3, 2013

Borders explored
Hundreds and hundreds

Method
Experimental interactive exhibition: Border drawings, visionary borders, Bordr iPhone app, floor borders, world-map whiteboard, Open Sloyd, border triangle

Camera lending
(reference to projects Across African Borders, Project Borders Queens, Stateless in Jordan, and Borders of Dals Långed)

Purpose
Show of concept and investigation into participatory audience inclusion methods on the theme of borders

Audience
General audience in the Swedish Dalsland region and beyond. Also schools and adult education

Project Period
Start: Planning started in the spring of 2013
Last activity: Exhibition closed on December 3, 2013

Locations
Dals Långed, Dalsland, Sweden

Project results
– Results from the exhibition was directly used to build momentum for the Europe Grand Central project.
– The exhibition is the blueprint of the What border have you crossed? exhibition at Queens Museum, New York November 21 – December 31, 2015

Inspired by
The exhibition built on experiences from participatory exhibitions at the Museum of Work in Norrköping and at the Not Quite artist collective. During these exhibitions we had tested custom made versions of the Bordr iPhone app on interactive iPads in the exhibition halls. With great results. Inspired by artistic border exploration such as the Vandring – Vittring project, the Project Borders Vision took experimentation to a new level, and tested a whole range of new techniques to include the audience to tell their own stories.

Difficulties
It turned out way easier than expected to make people interact with relevant border questions and tools. But the gallery setting made most people arrive only once, and not return to see how the exhibition evolved over time. The gallery setting also proved to attract mostly a certain type of culturally literate audience and it was hard to bridge the gap between audiences – and find new people with different kinds of stories. A setting in a more public space could help alleviate these difficulties.

Miscallaneous
At the opening of the exhibition on November 9, 2013, the vision of having an exhibition in New York two years later was publicly expressed. On November 21, 2015, the What border have you crossed? exhibition will open in New York. Thus, the vision is coming to life.

Credit
The exhibition was commissioned by the Cultural Association of Dals Långed on behalf of the Steneby School of Design and Craft at Gothenburg University, particularly with the help of Barbro Erlandsson Bratt, and in close collaboration with the Ekhags Middle School and the project “Borders of Dals Långed” enabled by the help of principal Annika Saltberg. The exhibition was produced by Marcus Haraldsson and Christo de Klerk, co-founders of Bordr, with help from Maria Quarfordt Brising, Johan Eriksson Lassbo, and many volunteers from the Cultural Association of Dals Långed.