How do you subvert the border without inadvertently emphasizing the border? How do you find shared needs to bring people together through themes such as agriculture, water or mobility? The problem of the border is that we treat it like a border, but what if we can clearly illustrate it is actually an integrated, functioning zone, rather than a hard line, which creates an obstacle for its geopolitical and also economic possibilities. This was the task assigned to the Borders studio at TU Delft. Students not only mapped the border region intensively –through a 2-week, 3000km road trip along its entire length – they redefined the way we might look at it. The conclusion of the project revealed a paradox: the physical and geopolitical ideologies which are implemented to keep people apart is actually functioning as a magnet: something that is meant to divide, actually attracts.
