Varvara Shavrova “BORDERS” video

The “BORDERS” project by a Russian-Irish, Beijing-based artist
Varvara Shavrova is conceived as a multi media installation that looks at geographical, political and metaphorical meanings of borders. Shavrova addresses issues of personal identity as a Russian living in China and explores them in the context of crossing borders and traveling to unfamiliar territories.

Shavrova questions the notion of borders in both the physical and the metaphorical sense. Whilst traveling by train, bus and car in the vast no-mans land, snow-shrouded monochromatic landscapes along the Russia-China border, Shavrova places questions in front of her audience: What is ‘a border’? Do borders exist in nature, or are they strictly a political phenomenon imposed by people? How does a physical border compare to a mental one? How do borders change as countries experience political and economic changes? Will borders ever become obsolete, a matter of historic reference on a map, or will issue of borders become more urgent, in the face of terrorist attacks, illegal trade and political and economic migration?

The video length is 30 minutes.