Waterways are essential components of the living and non-living world. They shape landscapes and serve as demarcation lines – as “natural borders” – between states in many parts of the world. In addition to being lines that separate, rivers and streams are also lines that connect, and borderland territories are often particularly rich places of life, interaction, passage, porosity, cross-pollination and exchange.
The accompanying program to Zoe Leonard’s exhibition “Al río / To the River” (02/02-06/06/2022) organized by UniGR-CBS's partners focus on the materiality of these river borders both from a territorial, geographical, and political point of view, and also from a metaphorical perspective, as arbitrary places where interests and ideologies overlap and clash.
A number of scholars and researchers in the fields of visual arts, cultural studies, history and geography will consider the riverine border in North American and European contexts. Their interventions are both part and continuation of contemporary debates on the status and the (symbolic) meanings of borders. These questions of borders have gained particular momentum in recent decades. The significance of borders as a response to the rise of burgeoning nationalisms or the ongoing migration management crisis has led to a forced digitization of border regimes, an increase in physical and digital surveillance, and a multiplication of border fortifications worldwide.
The accompanying exhibition program "Riverine Borders – On rivers and other border materialities" is aimed at citizens, students, researchers, artists and includes an online lecture series and a study day.
Lecture series (online)
22 March 2022, 4:30-6:00 PM, online
Bridging Fluid Borders: Entanglements in the French-Brazilian Borderland
Fabio Santos (Aarhus University)
Registration: https://bit.ly/3szNrjB
Poster: Download here
12 April 2022, 4:15-5:45 PM, online
“Learning to Speak English”: Displays and Displaces of Vulnerability in Contemporary Migrant Literature
Ana Gomez Laris (University of Duisburg-Essen)
Registration: sawallisch@uni-trier.de or S2lameye@uni-trier.de
Poster: Download here
13 May 2022, 6:30-8:00 PM,online
"The Tao of Mestizaje: Multiple Borders, multiple Brigdes"
Carlos Morton (Professor Emeritus at U of California at Santa Barbara)
Registration: https://bit.ly/3us51H1
Poster: Download here
Study day (free entrance)
20 May 2022, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
The Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg (3 Park Drai Eechelen, 1499 Luxemburg)
With:
Rebekka Kanesu (Trier University)
Ifor Duncan (Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
C.J. Alvarez (University of Texas at Austin)
Elisabeth Lebovici & Catherine Facerias (exhibition’s catalogue “Al rio / To the River”)
Daniela Johannes (West Chester University of Pennsylvania)
Astrid M. Fellner (Saarland University)
Registration here
More information here
A project of the The Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg and the UniGR-Center for Border Studies: University of Luxembourg (Department of Geography and Spatial Planning), Saarland University (North American Literary and Cultural Studies) and Trier University (Center for American Studies).