Mental Border Control
Podcast (English)
Podcast (Dutch)
Cúcuta
Since the Iron curtain fell in 1989 new physical borders emerged all over the world. The loss of an old world order sparked new conflict zones. Today building capacity and surveilance technology is so advanced it becomes attractive to Nation States to raise more, longer and stronger walls. What is the effect on our habitat?
The border city Cúcuta is the place to be to learn how communities live with the border in their backyards. When the Maduro regime unleashed the migration crisis in 2016, the Mental Border Control, was born as an artistic research project to locate, interpret and visualize the mental borders of the city.
2017 Fieldwork
The research started in 2017 with the invitation of the “El Pilar” Foundation to establish a context laboratory during the Together Apart art venue what is part of BIENALSUR, the first Biennial of Art in South America. The lab had a long term objective to establish the basis of what will be the Center for Border Studies in Cúcuta.
As a first stage, the MBC team interviewd twelve Cúcutaniams to reflect on the question: What is the effect of the border on communities, animals, products and the landscape? These reflections show how the border, apart from being an institutional agreement between countries, is a factor that shapes the culture of the city. Watch the video’s yourself on youtube.
The next step was to dig deeper under the surface to discover how locals have found many ingenious ways to benefit from living on the border. The informal city undermines, penetrates and blooms behind mental borders. Here are some drawings of typical border jobs. The reason to draw is because these jobs formally don’t exist.
Venezuelans who flee their country try to bring some assets with them. Since the Bolivar currency lost all value people carry furniture, household equipment and even building materials to the border. To cross the border river you can rent the Bachateros, who carry anything to the other side. The nick name refers to the big ant which is known for it’s strength.
The Coyote is on top of the food chain when it comes down to the risky business of smuggling. The Coyote smuggles people what makes it a very unpredictable job. People can get tired, talk to much or become aggressive on the trails crossing the border. The Coyote needs to know the landscape by heart to travel by night and know the routines of the border control.
The borders are also called ‘Red Zones’. It’s like a weather forecast because the smuggling and human trafficking moves around all the time. The local community knows more or less when and where you should not go. The Paramilitary groups who control the Red zones are inbetween the law and the Contrabandos. Keeping the peace and keep the smuggling traffic up and running.
The Moscas are the flies on the wall on the border. The contrabando gangs sent out the Moscas to be the eyes and ears for a savfe passage over the border. The job is very dangerous because you can encounter an armed response easily.
The border has a long tradition of smuggling. One of the most profitable products is gasoline. Now the borders are closed for cars the gasoline comes in by by cycle through the border river. It’s a risky job because the load is heavy and the border area is full of thief's and police. The Venezuelan gasoline is very popular because it contains led. You drive much more kilometres on one tank compared to the synthetic gasoline. This makes it about four times cheaper than Colombian gasoline. The worst thing that can happen is when the Pimpineros falls in the river and water leaks into the jerrycans.
Alejandria is the beating commercial heart of Cucuta. Hundreds of mobile soap shops creep out of basement every day and hit the streets. The products are sold cheap because shop owners don’t charge VAT. Most of the soap is smuggled in from Venezuela where the prices are fixed, and rebottled into famous brand packages. Every shop has to concure their own spot on the streets. If you don’t show up in time you loose your place. Some shop owners have several market stands and claim whole junctions for their business.
I’m new here in town. Coming from Medelin. We all work for one lady who owns the whole corner. If you don’t show up every day you loose your spot.
Since the border is closed in 2015 between Venezuela and Colombia, and the quality of life dropped in Venezuela, the stream of refugees in Cucuta grew. A lot of woman hit the streets in Cucuta. The Whore war, as locals call it, pumped up the competition since Venezuelan woman work much cheaper. The trans whores are also fighting the new comers. The only safe place for them to work are the so called family houses. Brothels run by a “Mother” who takes care of security and rents out rooms. With al the new guys the houses are over crowded and forces people to work the streets.
It always was a dangerous job. You can easily get beaten up. The family houses are the only safe haven. It’s our second home. The new guys keep the rooms occupied because they work and live in the rooms.
As a final result of the context lab we organized a group selfie at the Cristo Rey monument in Cúcuta on the 5th of December 2017. This monument was erected after the city was destroyed by the earthquake of 1875 and memorizes the collective spirit of the cucuteños who rebuilt the city. At the time of the event, the monument was considered to dangerous to visit. As a symbolic act 115 people from different communities crossed this collective mental border in Cúcuta by making this photo together.
The group selfie under the neglected monument became news. In 2019 the monument is being renovated and upgrated to a touristic viewpoint. The monument has been revived, recovering its essential symbolic character in memory of a united Cúcuta.
2019 Center for Border Studies
Mental borders affect public space. The less people experience the city as an open space means less options for civilized social development. Cúcuta is an extreme example where the public space became a battlefield where the weak are outlaws, the rich withdraw in their gated communities, and all kinds of interest groups fight for their own goals.
For the second context laboratory two years later in 2019, the main research question was: How do communities organize their communal space and how do they draw their mental borders in the city that is so hostile? We choose to work with three communities; The Antonia Santos neighborhood, established in the 1960ies by Colombian factory workers who worked just over the border in Venesuela to produce jeans. After maduro trew them out they started a underground factory in their neighborhood. The Seis de Reyes settlement, one of the new favella’s build by the refugees form Venesuela. This unclaimed land get’s occupied gradually. And the Las Palmas gated community, a walled neighborhood in the middle of the conflict zone on the border.
The MBC context lab was based in the ministery of Culture in Cucuta, creating a meeting point during the Together Apart Bienal 2019. During the exhibition the lab gave room to community innitiatives from the three communities. A research team of students from three universities (Uniminuto, Francisco José de Paula and Pamplona) enrolled a field work program in each neighborhood. Mapping the official borders and match them with the informal. Interviewing locals on how the community organised the public space and social care. From these examples the students presented a strategy on how citizens could generate a public space strong enough to withstand and overcome the mental borders of Cucuta.
The MBC action research resulted in implementing this conceptual framework into the Together Apart curatorship of the El Pilar foundation. They will follow up with the creation of a Center for Border Studies – CEF, where through the theoretical and artistic field work, the impact of these mental borders is shown, but also the potential how communities work around them.
Location Cucuta, Colombia
Period 2017 – 2019
Artistic team Dan Gamboa Bohórquez, Natalia Castillo, Melle Smets
Juntos Aparte team Alex brahim, Mónica Villamizar, Ledys Soto, Maria José Jaimes, Stephanie quintero, Juan carvajal, Lara Marín, Leonardo Mesa, Javier López
Production manager MBC team Catalina Fuentes
Community leaders Johanna Gutiérrez, Trino Ortega, Gloria de Navas
MBC fieldwork & research team Elkin España, Valeria Polo, Sibia Guerrero, Husein Rodriguez, María Valeria González, Saira Carely Lázaro, Ivana Isabel Sanchez, Hasly Jasneyra Sarmiento, Jorge Niño, Lina Fernanda Guevara, Danny Aldemar Aranzazu, Juan Manuel Mesa, Camilo Andrés Vásquez
Photography Oscar Mesa
Exhibition production Daniel Grimaldos, Rolando Ceròn, Eduardo Sandoval, Mauricio Roso
Special thanks to Sonia Ballesteros, Magda Martinez, Trino Ortega, Carlos Vergel, Erika Ayala, Yanet Sierra, Mayrene Cobaria, Stephanie Sarmiento, Carlos Saladén Vargas
Commisioned by TOGETHER APART takes place within the framework of BIENALSUR program, the first International Biennial of Contemporary Art in South America. https://juntosaparte.com/
Funding USAID
Partners El Pilar foundation, Uniminuto University, Francisco de Paula Santander University, FESC university, Corporation Cultural Cucuta, Pamplona University
