This brief but intense exhibition includes four transdisciplinary projects that explore and confront issues of identity, community building, xenophobia, extremist discourses, mobility and migration between Middle East and Europe and the cultural conflicts that arise from it. To provoke a dialogue about such difficult issues, the projects turn to humour and playfulness. As Borderline Offensive states: “a real and equal interaction between people is not possible without sharing the absurdities of life that make us all laugh (together)”.

How can humour help us heal, criticize authoritarian voices, or create bonds? These are some of the questions the four projects seek to explore by engaging different audiences — both newcomers and long-time residents in Gothenburg and Västra Götaland — in participatory activities such as role-playing workshops, puppet theatre, performance lectures, storytelling and conversations).

Borderline Offensive: Laughing in the Face of Fear includes:

Three Migrants in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Smuggler) [2019], Petko Dourmana: Video installation, performance and role playing, paraphrasing scenes from the comic classic Three Men in a Boat but now concerning three migrants being smuggled across a border river. The video installation is only observable with night vision devices, such as those used by border patrols.

Museum of Real History [2019], Ivana Šáteková, Zoukak Theatre Group and Abduljabbar Alsuhili: Exhibition and lecture-performance presenting ridiculous conspiracy theories by racists and populists as if they were credible. “An insult to society’s collective intelligence” say the artists.

Paper Puppet Poetry [2019], ŠKART collective: A collective story-making experience for young audiences, to create and perform their own stories of migration by crafting paper puppets.

The Long Heavy Road [2019], Darinka Pop-Mitić and Nalan Yırtmaç: Humorous stories from the road told by migrants, with migrants and for migrants, but shared also with Europe. The stories are told through collectively made low-fi street fanzines and wall graffiti.

All workshops and activities are free and open to the public if nothing else is stated.

Supported by

Exhibition is presented with the support of TILLT, Västra Götalandsregionen och Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. Further supported by Slovak Arts Council, Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, Keunstwurk.