The installation "Shrines of Citizenship" was part of Ethnographic Terminalia 2013 collective exhibition "Exhibition as Residency—Art, Anthropology, Collaboration", November 18 – 22, 2013 @ Arts Incubator at Washington Park, 301 E. Garfield Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60637

 

We used diverse art forms and media to explore the imaginaries ascribed to migration. Based upon several years of anthropological fieldwork with immigrant communities in Europe, our multimedia installation 'Shrines of Citizenship' invited visitors to reflect upon the recent tightening of European migration policies, as well as the physical, bureaucratic, and symbolic barriers undocumented immigrants around the world face when pursuing the dream of citizenship. Water, wax, and other devotional objects, such as an encased passport, alluded to the complexity of mobility and citizenship along all national borders, specifically evoking the memory of the thousands of people that in the last decades disappeared in the Mediterranean sea attempting to reach Europe’s southern border.

 

Shrines of Citizenship was partially funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation through the program for the internationalization of the visual arts.