INVISIBLE BORDERS – PUBLIC ART MUNICH - STUNDE NULL? wie wir wurden was wir sind – 2025

INVISIBLE BORDERS

30th of November, ODEONSPLATZ, 4-8 pm
INVISIBLE BORDERS by Anna McCarthy, created in collaboration with the Offen! Campaign and performers Philip Errico, FABÍOLA, and Charlotte Huber, with music by Anton Kaun, is an artistic intervention at Odeonsplatz. Border architecture and control situations become part of the performance, opening up a space for discourse on current migration policy and racism. Presented as part of Public Art Munich – Annual 2025 Stunde Null? Wie wir wurden, was wir sind.

https://www.publicartmuenchen.de/projekte/invisible-borders/

4-7 pm: POLICING THE POLICE - 40 masked policemen check two vehicles in a tableau-vivant mimicing a control situation at a German border.
A group of 4 unmasked performers look over their shoulders and document, critique and (via headset transmission) repeat methods of how to act as a victim of racial profiling or in solidarity as a witness of the same, as well as basic information regarding what the police is allowed and Schengen regulations, in five languages. Excerpts from current US strategies of countering similar such situations in regards to US are also included. Sounds of the searches underlie the searches - there are mics hooked up to the vans and tent - ampflying the closing and shutting of doors or sounds of the metal skeleton of the tent. A noise musician & vocalist pick up on these sounds and improvise, creating an underlying soundscape.
7-8 pm: The police are gathered and placed in two lines: they move out across the square in two opposing straight lines facing outwards. In a domino effect, the ‘police’ demask the person in front of them one after the other, followed by an individual removal of their vests in a domino-butterfly movement. The police are symbolically transformed into civilians and are then called to dismantle the border architecture communally - the tarp, is removed, the metal skeleton is disassembled, the signs are packed up and finally the powermoon lamps are turned off. The entire set up is disassembled, all the while the sound is continually picked up by the contact mics, amplifying the dismantling to a cacophony of sounds.

8-10pm: Lastly, the bus with the remaining performers follow the patterns on the floor to leave the sqaure followed by the vehicles in a choreography of goodbyes.