• Also view:
• Talking North - II
• Sami me — Sami you
• Talking North
• Talking Barents
• Barents Travel Diaries, Murmansk
• Sami-Salami
• Borders - Control or Rock-n-Roll?
• Border-Crossing Exercises
• Barents 2058 - Scenarios for the Pomor Zone
• New East-West Security: Northern Perspectives
• Barents Travel Diaries
• Border-Crossing Art and Life
• Transborder Concert
• Russia 2008 - Between Elections: Duma elections in December and Presidential elections in March
• Kirkenes and Nikel – Art and Ore
• Kirkenes – a Town in Oslo
• Cultural engagement - contact or contract?
• What's Happening in Northern Norway?
• Det bor flere folk i Barents
• Art and Politics Across Borders
• Artistic borderology

• « Transborder Café

Border-Crossing Exercises

The Minister of Culture of Switzerland Dominik Riedo welcomes with an opening speech on (in)visibility of borders in Europe.

Pikene på Broen come from the border town Kirkenes within 15 min drive from Russia and 50 min from Finland. Thus in all the projects we take the border town Kirkenes and the border region Barents, as a starting point. The Russian-Norwegian border is Russia´s youngest and Norway´s oldest, and it was drawn as a result of the agreement between the Swedish king Carl Johan Bernadotte XIV and the Russian tsar Alexander I. The High North politics was shaped amidst the European geopolitical tensions. Today the Barents Region is the playground for the world´s geopolitics due to the resources and possibilities in the Arctic. Official agreements between states is one thing. What is interesting is how communication and cooperation between people across the border is carried out. Here comes art and culture into play, creating meeting places for people.

Pikene på Broen have produced numerous Border-Crossing Exercises promoting artistic border-crossing practices and propelling people-to-people cooperation in the Barents Region, which historically has had peaceful border relations. Across Europe we have a different border-region – Caucasus representing a long history of border disputes. We collaborate with our partners in Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, and together we use art and culture as a tool to prevent conflicts and promote soft security. At this Transborder Cafe we will present some of the joint Barents-Caucasus projects.

The border between Turkey and Armenia is still closed, the border between Russia and Norway is visa controlled, the EU´s border politics is getting more and more “transparent”, though invisible borderlines are growing stronger. To present Nordic view on the border dialogues and tensions and Norway´s relation to EU, we have invited Norwegian writers Morten Strøksnes and Kjartan Fløgstad. Together with the artist Ane Lan from Oslo we reflect on the follow-ups of “marrying someone (read: joining the EU)”.

We wind up showing the video by Los Torreznos from Madrid who were invited to join Border-Crossing Exercises in Kirkenes and produced an art-piece which is finished with: “when you cross the border, if you look back – the border is still there, and it is still in front of you”.

Transborder Cafe is concluded with “Warm Music from the Cold Climate”: electronic musician Mombus from Murmansk.

Food: Norwegian fish soup is served.