KINGS Artist-Run presents
Bordering,
and performance-lecture The Obverse
The city is comprised of multiple zones that dictate the type of movement taking place within its boundaries. Simple acts such as walking, eating, smoking cigarettes, and drinking alcohol are legally spatialised. Each zone is structured according to a different set of rules that give priority to select users. The act of creating restrictions on space determines behavior and can function to exclude certain types of people.
A border is the boundary between two spaces. The process of bordering – creating borders – is a political tool that controls who can access certain spaces. Bordering is a series of one-on-one walks with Nathan Gray that explore some of the legal, commercial and public zones that make up the City of Melbourne. Although generally unseen, borders shape everyday urban existence. Through walking across different borders, the shifts in jurisdiction that define each zone will be both observed and experienced. Bordering invites participants to think about borders and the type of actions that can subvert them.
Bordering takes place from Thursday 29 September – Saturday 1 October. Nathan Gray will lead a series of one-on-one walks through the City of Melbourne, starting at KINGS Artist-Run. Each walk will last approximately forty minutes, and commence on the hour between 2-6pm. Bookings are essential.
Bordering is a part of the KINGS Artist-Run 2016 project ‘Starting Point’ coordinated by Alice Mathieu. Alongside Nathan Gray, participating artists include Therese Keogh and Jacqui Shelton, and Lodovica Guarnieri and Lorenzo Gerbi (Ita/Nth). Their projects will be presented in December 2016.
This project is supported by the City of Melbourne 2016 Arts Grants Program.
Alongside Bordering, Nathan Gray will present a video lecture performance of The Obverse on Sunday 2nd October at 6pm. The Obverse is a search for meaning in the tragic act of political self-immolation, framed as an attempt to find a voice by those who are systematically silenced and ignored. The Obverse proposes that as objects, capital and virtual labor move more freely and quickly without tariffs or taxes there is an increase in restrictions on migration in order to maintain or increase global market differences for profit, the result is increasing violence at the border.
The Obverse was developed during a VCA / Phasmid GbR studio residency in the Berlin borough of Marzahn.