LOCKED OUT OF EUROPE - Videoinstallation (14:54 min, 2014)
Pope Francis calls it the globalization of indifference. We are the travellers of permanent transit, say the refugees.
The European Union is a house with 28 open doors. We Europeans are pleased at this newly acquired freedom and peace and the possibility of living and working in whatever area of Europe we choose.
The doors of Europe are locked tight on the outside, especially southwards. Europe’s furthest southern border is not on European soil but in Africa. Melilla, a Spanish exclave in Morocco with approx. 80 000 inhabitants, is so far away from Europe and our peaceful existence that we fail to see what is happening at this, our external border.
Melilla was fenced in with funds from the European Community. The border system is eleven kilometres long and consists of three consecutive fences, one of which is six metres high. Floodlights, movement detectors, thermal cameras, watchtowers and patrol vehicles are reminiscent of the inner-German border. Very few attempts to scale the fence succeed. Migrants and refugees from Sub-Saharan Africa, Syria and Afghanistan are injured by NATO razor wire or by border guards. Lacerated, they drop to the ground and, without receiving medical assistance, are frequently deported back to Morocco on the spot.
Jani Pietsch explored the fence on foot and by bicycle. Her collage of video and sound recordings translocates Europe’s most southern border to the centre of Europe.