BORDER II
Border II, presented in the Keeper’s Room at the Royal Academy Schools, developed the border into a more functional and spatial structure. A single room with one identity is divided into two separate territories. The division reflects how territories can be fragmented through colonial and political power, producing separate geographical and political identities from what was once a continuous space, as has happened across Kurdistan. The border is also placed under constant surveillance by four CCTV cameras equipped with face-detection and AI-based systems, introducing a further layer of control over the divided space.
I invited people connected through family and friendship to become part of the sculpture. By placing them on opposite sides of the border, an existing relationship becomes subject to a division that was not inherent to it. The border enters the relationship itself, turning connection into distance and proximity into separation. A line imposed through political and colonial power becomes capable of reorganising relationships that existed long before the border.
In this situation an old Kurdish recording was played on one side, while its sound was transmitted to the other side through speakers connected by cables running beneath the border. Against the restrictions imposed by the border, the music suggests how culture can cross boundaries, evade prohibitions and continue to connect what political divisions attempt to separate.
The border is a lived experience for me. I grew up in a border city in Kurdistan, where the presence of the border was part of everyday life. It was not only a line on a map, but a physical and political presence that shaped movement, identity and the way the surrounding land was understood.
For me, the border is a constructed line imposed onto a continuous territory, often through colonial and political power: a line that divides what was once connected, produces different names and identities on each side, and determines who and what can pass through it. It is also a structure of control, maintained through surveillance, restriction and force.