Rooted in human history and still highly relevant today, this theme encompasses several issues addressed by the center, including political, social, technological, and physical questions.
The concept of borders is rich in historical, geographical, psychological, and artistic connotations. In its contemporary dimension, it is increasingly seen as a point of contact and negotiation, rather than simply a barrier. Like the philosopher Régis Debray, we want to “think of borders not as walls (to be torn down in order to expand, or erected for defense), but as skin, capable of breathing and therefore of facilitating exchanges with the environment.” (Éloge des frontières, Gallimard 2013).
A series of exhibitions
The program is organized around three thematic cycles consisting of exhibitions in the display window on the ground floor of the Pôle de Gaspé (a first glass boundary), workshops, performances, and artist presentations.
Cultures, languages, spiritualities: beyond borders
The first cycle brings together four artists from across the Americas who explore the rediscovery of roots and heritage through questions about memory and death.
Remixes and networks: challenging boundaries
The second cycle of Frontière presents three installations that examine technologies and their impact on our lives and societies, particularly in terms of their ability to blur the boundaries between truth and falsehood, documentary and fiction, the living and the non-living.
Geopolitics: variable spaces
The concept of geopolitics will inform the third cycle with a reflection on the relationships between geography (human, physical, territorial) and sociopolitics, questioning power relations in space in various ways.
A theoretical reflection
In order to explore the theme in greater depth, TOPO invited seven authors to contribute to the retrospective publication. FRONTIÈRE – Réflexion artistique et théorique to be released in 2022 and available online at topo.art/frontiere.
Three authors specifically addressed the three cycles of programming for installations and web art projects supported by TOPO between September 2019 and September 2021.
Nuria Carton de Grammont, commissioner
La matière spirituelle et le sens de l’autre
Paule Mackrous, writer
Remixes and networks: challenging boundaries
Mirna Boyadjian, commissioner
Geopolitics: variable spaces
Four other individuals offer broader reflections on the concept of borders from different perspectives: political, aesthetic, psychological, and technological.
Ricard Zapata Barrero, professor and theorist
La sémantique actuelle des frontières : des pistes politiques
Chantal Pontbriand, artistic director, curator, and editor
Frontière et migration : une esthétique du changement
Jean-Dominique Leccia, psychiatrist
La notion de frontière : du mental au spatial
David Jhave Johnston, researcher and digital poet
Implants cerveau-machine [ICM] : Art, considérations éthiques et implantations neuronales
Other events in the program
- Saturday 4 June 2022 from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.
