Landscapes in motion: the border lands of artistic practice

Abstract

This paper addresses the production of borders through the lenses of the autonomy of migration, and how the autonomist perspective on borders as flexible and mobile power formations might serve the analysis of spatial production in the context of artistic practices. Specifically, the paper focusses on questions of identity and belonging and how these are conveyed in artworks through practices of translation. I propose that ‘artistic practices of translation’ express an embodied form of intertextuality, attesting to the importance of translation as means to remain in transit – between languages, cultures, places, and their memories – and materialising a counter-hegemonic epistemology of spatial production. This is illustrated through a video piece by visual artist Mona Hatoum alongside mobility control in the occupied territories of Palestine