European Dream. “Keep bangin’ on the wall”

EUROPEAN DREAM “Keep bangin’ on the wall” Carla Cruz Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto - I2ADS / Faculty of Fine Arts from University of Porto - I2ADS, OPorto, Portugal Abstract This paper discusses ideas around European identity, the ideal of free movement, and the building of ‘Fortress Europe’ through artistic work I was developing between 2005 and 2006, and endorses feminist theorist Rosi Braidotti’s idea of “becoming minoritarian” as an antidote to building an European identity based on old and new xenophobic and racist ideas, supported through my experience of leading the feminist exhibition project All My Independent Wo/men between 2005 and 2013, as a similar project of operating from the margin as a place of potentiality. Keywords: Europe, art, immigration, nomadic subjectivity, becoming minoritarian. European Dream. “Keep bangin’ on the wall” In 2006, I did a residency in Finland – VAASA, where I set myself the goal to better understand what is to be European, and what better way to do it than to travel to a faraway European country and try and understand if we share the same vision of what it is to be European. 4,000 km away from home, what I found was the same generalised fear that our comfortable lives would be taken away by foreigners – nearby neighbours or those crossing the Mediterranean. After living for nine years in the United Kingdom, with Brexit looming, I am back in Portugal and thinking how those arising concerns have come to occupy a central stage in Europe in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. In this paper, I will be revisiting my queries about European identity and the ideal of free movement, and the building of ‘Fortress Europe’ through artistic Carla Cruz, EUROPEAN DREAM. “Keep bangin’ on the wall” 65 work I was developing between 2005 and 2006, and calling upon feminist theorist Rosi Braidotti’s idea of “becoming minoritarian” as an antidote to building an European identity based on old and new xenophobic and racist ideas. Fortress Europe Keep bangin' on the wall Keep bangin' on the wall of fortress europe! – Asian Dub Foundation, Fortress Europe At the turn of the twentieth century, political theorist Chantal Mouffe (1993, 3) affirms that “our societies are undergoing a deep process of redefinition of their collective identities and experiencing the establishment of new political frontiers.” If, according to Mouffe, before the collapse of Communism in the east, western democracies could position themselves as us – democrats – against them – communists – without that defined ‘them’, the necessary “friend/enemy frontier is taking a multiplicity of new forms linked to the resurgence of old antagonisms – ethnic, national, religious and others.” (Ibid.). Moreover, if, for Mouffe, it is very difficult for the moderate right and the left to redefine a ‘them’, the radical right, has already found its enemy. “It is provided by the ‘enemy within’, the immigrants, which are presented by the different movements of the extreme right as a threat to the cultural identity and national sovereignty of the ‘true’ Europeans.” (Ibid., 4). We're the children of globalisation No borders only true connection Light the fuse of the insurrection This generation has no nation Grass roots pressure the only solution We're sitting tight 'cause assylum is a right – Asian Dub Foundation, Fortress Europe In 2003, as the UK electronica band Asian Dub Foundation (2003) was releasing their fourth album, Enemy of the Enemy, the European Union (EU) was celebrating 10 years of the Single Market and its ‘four freedoms’, freedom of movement of goods, services, people and money. (europa.eu). However, for my NOTES ON EUROPE. The Dogmatic Sleep Proceedings. Porto, October 29-31 2019 66 generation, free movement within the EU, felt to be more about commodity circulation than people’s. As the EU took down barriers between its member state’s borders, the borders to the outside world were growing. Moreover, as Rosi Braidotti (2004) affirms, “the redefinition of European boundaries coincides with the resurgence of micro-nationalisms at all levels in Europe.” Keep banging on the wall of fortress europe Keep banging Keep banging on the wall of fortress europe – Asian Dub Foundation, Fortress Europe The 2005 incident at the Melilla Wall1 – the physical barrier between Morocco and Spain, built specially to contain immigration – which saw hundreds of subSaharan African migrants trying to climb over the fences, some to die at the hands of Moroccan security forces, exacerbated that feeling of living in Fortress Europe. In the same year, I was making the sculpture EUROPA (Cruz, 2005), fig 1.2 1 Built in the 1980s after the entrance of Spain to the then CEE, improved and extended in the 1990’s, the Melilla wall consists of 11km of parallel 6m high fences topped with barbed wire, with regular watch posts and police patrol. Underground cables connect spotlights, noise, and movement sensors, and video cameras. Its height was doubled after the 2005 incident. (European Commission, 2005, 70). The sculpture, resembling an illuminated shop sign, fails to switch on permanently, commenting on my feeling of a failing European Union, that forsakes people in need, as a threat to internal prosperity and peace. 2 Presented for the first time at the exhibition 16 salas 16 artistas – Laboratório das Artes, Guimarães, 2005. Carla Cruz, EUROPEAN DREAM. “Keep bangin’ on the wall” 67 Figure 1. Europa, light-box, 51 x 71 x 13 cm, Carla Cruz, 2005. (Photo by Carla Cruz, courtesy of the artist) Who doesn't run when they're feel the hunger From where to what to when to here to there People caught up in red tape nightmare – Asian Dub Foundation, Fortress Europe Following theorist and activist Franco Berardi (2010, 3), “Europe is wealthy because it has historically managed to valorize competence, and not just competition, to welcome and integrate other cultures. And, it must be said, it is also wealthy because for four centuries it has ferouciously exploited the physical and human resources of other continents.” Europe, wealthy because it integrated/exploited other cultures, in its endless attempt to become, and us, its newly moulded citizens wondering what is to become European, are we moulding to its image? And what image is that? NOTES ON EUROPE. The Dogmatic Sleep Proceedings. Porto, October 29-31 2019 68 Figure 2. Europe – where are you?, photography, Carla Cruz & Ângelo Ferreira de Sousa, 2006. (Photo by Francesco Ventrella, courtesy of the artists) In 2006, fellow artist Ângelo Ferreira de Sousa and I sent a call to other European based cultural workers: Dear friend We invite you to take part of the project "Europe – where are you?" For the project we ask you to take a picture of yourself or others hitchhiking to Europe. 1. write EUROPE on a cardboard 2. place yourself holding the card on the side of a road, as if hitchhiking. 3. document it on photographic form. 4. send it with good printing quality to: [email protected] At the time, the suspicion was that most European citizens felt Europe was elsewhere, or at least the Europe signified by the EU. Berardi goes on to affirm Carla Cruz, EUROPEAN DREAM. “Keep bangin’ on the wall” 69 that there is an aesthetic of the European Union, which is a cold one. “The European Union was born in the aftermath of World War II with the goal of overcoming old nationalist and ideological passions, and here lies its progressive and pragmatic nature. Lately, however, this founding anti-mythological myth seems to have been blurred, confused, forgotten.” (Berardi, 2010, 4). The prosperous and peaceful image of the European Union, with its glass and concrete buildings, whitewashed history, has also played a more conservative, and perhaps dangerous role, according to Braidotti (2004, 135), which is “the European Union project as a self-appointed centre, which universalizes its own reading of ‘civilization’.”3 Figure 3. European Dream, installation with Moroccan Carpet, 142 X 220cm, and Sound Piece in collaboration with Marta Von ÓiÓai, Carla Cruz, 2006, private collection. (Photo by Carla Cruz, courtesy of the artist) 3 See current discussions in Portugal on the superiority of European cultures as a proof of this central role and its dangers. The sociologist Paulo Mendes, wrote the following for the Portuguese newspaper Público, in response to a polemical and racist article, for the same newspaper, by Maria de Fátima Bonifácio: “Of the whole web of prejudice of the article of MFB, I would highlight its only positive point: it helped to bring the subject of racism and discrimination out of the closet to be discussed by the Portuguese society and made us leave behind that unrealistic idea that there is no racism in Portugal or, alternatively, that our racism is milder than in other countries.” [my translation] (Mendes, 2019). NOTES ON EUROPE. The Dogmatic Sleep Proceedings. Porto, October 29-31 2019 70 In the same period, I made the installation piece, European Dream (Cruz, 2006a)4 As the ‘them’, as Mouffe (1993) argues, is transposed from the former eastern European bloc, to the right populist vision of the uncivilized immigrant, the vision of a welcoming nature of Europe is fading. Europe, the promise land of milk and honey, of entrepreneurship, where you could reap the fruits of your labour, is shedding its robe and showing its uglier face, Fortress Europe, where, as Braidotti (2004, 133) warns, Eurocentrism is being replaced by Europism – “i.e. the belief in an ethnically pure Europe.” , fig 3, which comments on the idea of the American Dream transposed to Europe, and on the arising of the migration crisis. The piece is composed of an altered Moroccan carpet, European blue, that conceals the text EUROPEAN DREAM, and a sound piece that includes audio recorded on the ferryboat between Algeciras and Tangier, and on the streets of Tangier, mixed with radio samples from European radio stations and European Baroque, Trance and Flamenco music, alluding to the crossings between the two continents. Ângelo Ferreira de Sousa (2006), wrote for our 2006 exhibition Jusqu’ ici tout va bien, fig 2, the following: … This land above geography, this Guantánamo, a territory between two walls is, as it is well known, the worst place to be. The walls are older than skyscrapers. Nonetheless, both sketch the dances of fear, marking the Earth with this or that, temporary, political power. Let’s have a look at some examples, the Wall of China (c. 16m height, 8m wide, c. 2500 km long), intended to stop the entrance of the Mongols; Hadrian’s Wall (c. 4.5m height, 3m wide and 118 km long), to prevent the entrance of Barbarians into the Roman Empire; … Israel West Bank Barrier (438 km long, reaching at some points 8m height), security for some segregation for others; Mexico-United States Barrier (a non-continuous structure of 930 km and 7m height), intended to reduce the entrance of illegal immigrants from central and South America into US territories. Barriers 4 Made for the exhibition Cityscapes, curated by Miguel von Haffe Pérez, Plumba Gallery, ARCO Madrid Art Fair, 2006. The carpets used to make the piece were bought in Chefchaouen – Morocco, 2006. Carla Cruz, EUROPEAN DREAM. “Keep bangin’ on the wall” 71 for barbarians. […] On the grounded perspective of the nomad, or the new barbarian, the challenge of the wall is to overcome it. ‘Them’, these constitutive ‘others’, as Braidotti (2004, 132) explains, “constitute respectively: the second sex or sexual complement of Man; the coloured, racialized or marked other that allows the Europeans to pass off their whiteness as the defining trait of humanity.” Today, as Europe is struggling with multiculturalism and specially at a time of increasing racism, the myth of whiteness and the assumption of monoculturalism in Europe must be challenged. Braidotti (Ibid., 136) states: European history at any point in time provides ample evidence to the contrary: waves of migrations from the East and the South make a mockery of any claim to ethnic or cultural homogeneity in Europe, while the persistent presence of Jewish and Muslim citizens challenges the identification of Europe with Christianity. Figure 4. Welcome, performance, Carla Cruz, 2006, (Photo by Carla Cruz, courtesy of the artist) NOTES ON EUROPE. The Dogmatic Sleep Proceedings. Porto, October 29-31 2019 72 In 2006, I wrote the following to accompany my solo exhibition Fear+Desire, at Platform Gallery, Vaasa: Every year thousands of people leave their home towns, their countries, in search for a better life, a bearable life. These people normally travel from countryside to bigger towns, from poorer countries to richer countries, from countries at war or with totalitarian regimes to democratic and peaceful countries. These people – migrants – are the motor of several high income developed countries that wouldn’t be able to maintain the level of production and quality of life without them. After having been primarily countries of emigration for more than two centuries, many countries within the European Union gradually became destinations for international migrants. […] in this millennium Europe is a continent at peace, at least within its borders. But that hasn’t been so for the last centuries. […] This apparent peace is kept alongside a constant state of fear. But what are we most afraid of? Loosing someone dear to us or one’s life, surely, comes first, but apart from that, what are Europeans afraid of? We are afraid of the unknown, uncertain and insecure. We are afraid of those who want the same as we do. Those who desire security and peace. We are afraid of those who invade our borders to live our ways, but not quite the same way. […] (Cruz, 2006c). Welcome (Cruz, 2006b), fig 4, is a performance piece, made during the artistic residency in Vaasa, where I created a live sized cake, in the shape of a ‘racialized’ human body, as if it was washed ashore, and invited the visitors to welcome him by singing the Swedish version of the happy birthday song, before joining in in eating the body-cake. The Swedish birthday song says5: Yes, you must live, yes, you must live, yes, you must live a hundred years.6 5 Swedish is the second official language in Finland and spoken by the majority of fins living in Vaasa. The performance was accompanied by Finish mourning music. Both a wake and a welcoming party, Welcome was made to make those who joined in uncomfortable. 6 My translation of the original: Ja, må du leva, Ja, må du leva, Ja, må du leva uti hundrade år.