Border-Crossing Art and Life

12 September 2008, Ofelas Cafe-Club, Kirkenes

Transborder Café within the 2008 European Conference of the Association of Borderland Studies.

1. Pikene på Broen present:
“Border-Crossing Art and Life in the United States of Barents”.
Presentation by LUBA KUZOVNIKOVA, art-director, Pikene på Broen.

2. Screening of short films made by contemporary artists invited by Pikene på Broen for the exhibition «Times Square Kirkenes-Nikel» under Barents Spektakel 2008. They deal with border-crossing problematics, realities and expectations across the Russian-Norwegian border and relations between Kirkenes and Nikel. Films are made by 
BLUE NOSES group (Moscow, Russia),
OLGA and ALEXANDER FLORENSKY (St Petersburg, Russia) and 
LOS TORREZNOS group (Madrid, Spain)
during the artists-in-residency program in January 2008 in Kirkenes and Nikel. Each film is 5-8 min.

3. KIRSTEN DUFOUR (Copenhagen) and ULRIKE SOLBRIG (Berlin): Barents Mobile Intercultural Bureau.
The project takes the situation of Russian women selling Matrioshkas and crystal glass in a Russian arts and crafts market in Kirkenes as departure point for engaging different parties involved in a discussion/exchange about cross-border trading, cultural exchange, the situation of market women coming from Murmansk to Kirkenes, etc.

4. Transborder Cafe is continued with a panel discussion.
3 months after the Norwegian and Russian Ministers of Foreign Affairs met in Kirkenes to discuss further possibilities of establishing the Pomor Zone (June 2008), we invite to an open discussion about cooperation between the neighboring border communities. What new possibilities can we foresee as a result of recent political decisions? What new issues do they bring?
Key-speakers: the Russian Consul in Kirkenes IGOR BULAI and ATLE STAALESEN, Barents Secretariat.
We invite the local community and the conference participants after a 1-day trip to Nikel to join the discussion and contribute with their visions to an on-going discussion about future cooperation strategies in the border region.
Moderator – Pikene på Broen.