Scene

A performance that becomes an installation on a pedestrian street in the heart of the city centre of Turku, Finland, June 6-9th, 2012. A fence is being erected, 4m in length and 1,80m in height, extended with rusty barbed wire on top. Attached on both sides of the fence are hand-painted but somewhat official-looking signs that claim “nothing permitted” and warn passers-by about “value contamination”, in several languages.

Statement

Our lives are defined by diverse rules and regulations, borders and blocks. Borders shape our identities, they divide individuals to us and them. Borders limit our mobility, they shape our thoughts, opinions and behaviour patterns. Borders are often arbitrary, but we have grown so used to them that we rarely question their purpose or the supposed authorities behind them.

Consider this: WE ARE BORN FREE. We cannot be given freedom, it can only be taken away from us. And it happens all the time by various authorities claiming power and control over individuals. Why and for whose benefit?

Directors’ Word

Raja|Border critically addresses concrete and conceptual borders that affect our daily lives. The installation, set in public space, creates an imaginary and arbitrary border, behind which random passers-by become “others” as warned about in the signs on the fence. Raja|Border comments on the means with which interaction between people are being directed and limited.

2012
Installation and performance for public space

Concept, design, execution VIRASTO
(SATU KARHUMAA & NIKO SKORPIO)
Installation assistants, variable cast of volunteers chosen on the spot