This is not a fence
This is not a fence is an artistic comment by Vladan Jeremic and Rena Raedle by means of a wall drawing in the vestibule of the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova. It refers to the events in the autumn of 2015, when the Slovene government adopted the border policy of the Hungarian government of Victor Orban and built a barbed razor wire fence on the border with Croatia to stop migrants from war-torn regions from crossing into Slovenia.
When they explained this step to the public, the Slovene Prime Minister Miro Cerar and representatives of his party avoided the direct and aggressive rhetoric of Victor Orban. Instead they introduced a language of technocratic camouflage. The fence was built but a fence was never mentioned, instead the measure was dubbed “technical barriers”.
Miro Cerar's negation of reality is not to be explained as some kind of psychological avoidance of reality; it is in fact a model of politics where technocratic means and measures replace political negotiations about how to deal with a problem of social reality. Structurally, this kind of practice reminds us of another administrative measure, the erasure of residents of Slovenia that were born in other Yugoslav republics from the Registry of Permanent Residence in 1992.
The artistic comment adds the Slovene perspective to the more complex project Cold Wall, which was realized in Budapest in November 2015.
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Vladan Jeremic and Rena Raedle are artists whose artistic practice comprises drawing, text, and video. Since 2002 they have been developing a joint artistic practice that explores the overlapping space between art and politics. In their artistic work they focus on socioeconomic conditions of reproduction, unveiling these by provoking the contradictions that exist in society today. Jeremic and Raedle live and work in Belgrade, Serbia. Their recent exhibitions include: AgitProp!, Brooklyn Museum, 2016; Cold Wall, SYAA Studio Gallery, Budapest, 2015; Red Winter, SIZ Gallery, Rijeka, 2015; Mundus vadit retro, Kibla, Maribor, 2014 ; Deep Sites, LevArt, Levanger, 2014; To the Square 2, Perpetuum Mobilε, Checkpoint Helsinki, Helsinki, 2014; Self Made Urbanism Rome, nGbK, Berlin, 2013; Between Worlds II, Kraljevic Gallery, Zagreb, 2013; Places of memory—Fields of vision, Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki, 2012; Absolute Democracy, Rotor, Graz, 2012; Oktobar XXX, 15. Pančevo Biennial, Serbia, 2012; The Housing Agenda, Cable Factory Gallery and Ateneum Museum, Helsinki, and at La maison Folie Wazemmes, Lille, 2012; Moving Forwards, Counting Backwards, MUAC, Mexico City, 2012.
