Boundary-Work
2018
In the anthropological understanding of the formation of social groups, a group is defined
primarily by its borders; where they are placed and how hard they are being policed and
maintained. The process of “boundary-work” is inseparable from ascription, where self-
ascription and ascription of others become the main critical feature of the group. What matters
here is not actual behavior or facts, or how similar members of the group are, but rather what
they say they are and what they say they stand for. Thereby the boundary is a space where
characteristics undergo dramatic change, where “us” transforms into “them”.
One of the ways of understanding social borders, is that they are an action, continuously performed, an unstable phenomenon, existing as a result of everyday work. The viewer here is invited to perform or contemplate the process of policing the border, as well as experiencing the danger that such processes always carry. The harder the boundary is being defined by us, the sooner we are going to be destroyed by its presence.
One of the ways of understanding social borders, is that they are an action, continuously performed, an unstable phenomenon, existing as a result of everyday work. The viewer here is invited to perform or contemplate the process of policing the border, as well as experiencing the danger that such processes always carry. The harder the boundary is being defined by us, the sooner we are going to be destroyed by its presence.
Boundary-Work is a large-scale kinetic sculpture where the viewer is invited to perform or contemplate the process of policing the border, as well as experiencing the danger that such processes always carry. The wall that can be rocked back and forth has the ambivalent appearance of heavy concrete and “prop” simultaneously. In the moment of rocking it creates an adrenalin effect for the one pushing it, when the danger recognized by the body combats the intellectual understanding of fake-ness of the threat.
Installation Images by Klaengur Gunnarsson
Still from the documentation video of Boundary-Work
