2024
Flagpole, adorned with barrier tape, situated on the only point in the garden where 4 cadastral plots meet. Barrier tape marking the boundaries of the 2 central plots that divide the garden in four parts. Sphere, comprised of rolled up barrier tape, representing the length of the German-French border (448km*). * according to Wikipedia.
As part of the Europe week in Eitorf, organised to celebrate the city-friendship between Eitorf (DE), Bouchain (FR) and Halesworth (GB), I was commissioned to create a temporary Artwork with a focus on the benefits of Europe.
The location was an empty villa with a huge garden. During my research I found out that the garden was divided in 4 cadastral plots. These borders within this single garden inspired me to focus on borders in general.
The Richardson Effect,
Lewis Fry Richardson (1881-1953), (Mathematician, Physicist, Meteorologist, Psychologist and Pacifist).
In search of a mathematical formula as a basis for understanding the origins of international conflicts, Richardson investigated, among other things, the relationship between the length of national borders and the probability of war. He discovered that there were varying measurements of the length of one and the same country border. When he investigated how this was possible, he found that the length of a coastline or national border depends on the accuracy with which it is measured. The more precise, the longer the border, Ad Infinitum. Richardson published these findings in 1951, which is also the year in which the EU attained its first form.