Anticolonial Fantasies

 

 

Anticolonial Fantasies, 2015. Acrylic on cardboard. 50 x 70 cm

I reflect on the notion of territory as something that is marked by borders for its administration and regulation under the nation state, that controls who has the rights to transit and inhabit spaces and who is allowed the right to travel and explore different territories, who must engage in paperwork limbos and how this mirrors historical colonial relationships. 

The statistics sheet shows the list of countries the students at the Academy of Fine Arts come from (2015) It includes the number of students from the continents of Africa and Latin America, and whether they re legally allowed to come to Austria, and the differential access that exists to roam the planet. The numbers correspond to the hierarchy of mobility and visa-free travel where nationals of ex-colonial empires hold a passport that grants them the possibility of unhindered travel. The aftermath of colonialism categorizes nationals from ex-colonies as migrants who are subject to strict migration laws, exhausting bureaucratic systems and chains of paperwork.

Short Stories on Europe

Digital drawings, 2012-2013.

The migratory control system of the European Union is characterized for the increasing number of deaths under the supervision of the Member States, the collection of evidence that at least 20,000 people have died on the borders of the EU, people who are being locked up in detention centers without having committed any crime, and a considerable number of security companies that are benefiting from this criminalization, companies whose research projects are being funded through the Council of Europe with the taxes of EU citizens and non-EU citizens alike.
The involvement of different parts of society, including the art world, such as architects that use their artistic and creative energy to validate supposed improvements of the circumstances of detention. The media with their production of fear against the figure of the refugee, the passive social consensus that allows this to happen in the name of the protection of the welfare state. The persecution of refugees who activate themselves politically and who see their survival solidarity to other refugees turned into criminalization. And the people who advocate for these measures in the name of saving the European lifestyle and values.

Center and periphery

Project in public space develop in the frame of City Festwochen. Covering two walls with digital illustrations as windows into other peripheric realities. Additionally small handwritten texts alluding to borders and migration where written on the wall to be read by passersby. Hohermarkt Square, 2011.

Recreation

a. Imprinted fantasies CMYK. b. The Talk. c. Ways of land scape. Digital drawings. 2007-2009

"Vacations as a break from productivity, the isolation of one's body or mind from the capitalist production system. During episodes of recreation an individual retires from its "productive" role and becomes a consumer of time dedicated to relax. Regardless as its name anticipates one recreates the necessity for a planned time expenditure and the achievement of specific means towards fun. Individuals may end up engaging in acts of risk and consumption of foreign exoticism while recreating the hegemonic narrative of pleasure as been achievable only through consumerism."

This is a work that translates how I lived the year I arrived in Austria, working largely unpaid as a designer and carrying the jargon of sociology studies. I had never traveled on vacations at home, nor did I know of anyone who stopped working to go on a trip, and thus the idea of vacations as it was lived in Austria impacted me. But also in connection with the desertion of all I knew, the loneliness, the differences in ways of caring, expecting, and communicating, the architectural language of modern desolate buildings in the city, and the absurdity of the migratory control system I was only starting to face.