Border ritual becomes art
The daily ritual of opening and closing the border between Russian and Norway will become art during the Barents Spektakel festival in Kirkenes.
Every morning at 7 am and every evening at 9 pm, a Norwegian and a Russian border guard meet right at the borderline of checkpoint Storskog/Boris Gleb, the only existing Norwegian-Russian border crossing, to shake hands at the turnpikes. The Russian guard greets his Norwegian colleague in Norwegian; the Norwegian guard greets his Russian colleague in Russian. The men turn and proceed towards their guard houses; the border is open, or closed, respectivley.
Two German artists are in Kirkenes to make an art film about the formal ritual. Steffen Krüger and Tammo Rist want to focus on the symbolic in the ritual. They see in this ritual two grown-ups that meet eye to eye, they are protected by ritual and routine, but meet each other with kindness and civility.
“Technically the turnpikes could have been automatic, but instead we have this human ritual”, Krüger says to Sør-Varanger Avis.
The film will be part of a larger exhibition called “Dare to Share” and will to be shown during this year’s Barents Spektakel festival in Kirkenes February 8-12. Read more about the program on the festival’s web site.
