Intervention at the Hungarian Pavilion at Venice Biennale
A group of activists made a blockade at the Hungarian pavilion at the Venice Biennale on Sunday, August 30th.
The group that calls itself #fenceforeurope was demonstrating against the razor-wire ‘fence’ that is under construction by the Hungarian government at the Southern border of Hungary keeping the refugees coming mostly from Syria, Libya and Eritrea away.
Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime-minister, recently announced that the fence was going to be completed by the 31st of August, and that the government will send a special border patrol to the area.
Sunday’s action appeared in a contemporary art context, and the action itself was partly political, partly artistic. #fenceforeurope used exactly the same instruments that the government did during its campaign against the refugees: street posters and questionnaires that were sent out to millions of Hungarian citizens under the campaign called “National Consultation”. (The government wanted to legitimize its policy with this direct “consultation” but in fact very few people sent the letters back.)
The group also used the Hungarian government’s rhetoric – meanwhile also criticizing the EU’s policies regarding the refugees.
“Our response is clear: we’d like to keep Europe for the Europeans”
An intervention at the 2015 Venice Biennale
At the end of July Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary, announced that Hungary would close its border to Serbia. The 110-mile-long, 13-foot-tall fence, which will physically prevent any movement between the two countries other than through legal checkpoints, will be completed by the 31st August.
We, as Hungarian citizens of Fortress Europe, and also as individuals who genuinely love their privileges, decided that on the day before the official handover of the border-fence we’ll physically block the entrance to the Hungarian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. In order to help support the separation of our country and our citizens more clearly, on the 30th August we won’t let anybody enter the exhibition space. We’d like a Europe, which is proud of its colonial past and builds its present on this heritage.
We’d like a Europe, which – after centuries of conquests and expansion – now closes its gates before the refugees from the countries she colonized and exploited.
We’d like a Europe, which will define the homo europensis as a race in its own right and which will be led by this race of the unworthy.
We’d like a Europe, which will put join efforts to fulfill this race’s unmerited and exorbitant needs without a care for any other people in the entire world till eternity. Or at least until our resources and the resources of the Earth will run out.
Today Hungary today shows Europe the right way.
Europe sees this and is eager to agree.
Let’s build an isolated, locked Fortress together until we are terminated by the simple law of entropy!
Join to the action, share and spread your ideas with using the #fenceforeurope hashtag!
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