Papers by Nicoletta Grillo
Passage, 2023
The national boundary line that separates Italy and Switzerland is today highly dematerialised an... more The national boundary line that separates Italy and Switzerland is today highly dematerialised and mostly invisible. Yet it continues to exist as a “borderscape,” reproduced by a series of crossing practices such as crossborder work and migration, and by their associated imaginaries. Based on oral history, photography, and performative walks, this essay gives a first-person account of how this border is kept alive or contested by those practices that routinely cross it. The starting point is the story of women workers employed in a manufacturing factory in the border area who used to go to the border woods to harvest flowers. Moving between border factories, workers’ parking lots, migratory trajectories, and smuggling routes, the essay tests on the ground the notion of a borderscape at the interception of experiences and representations.
Image [&] Narrative, 2021
The Italian margin is largely made up of seacoast. At the furthest south, the border passes throu... more The Italian margin is largely made up of seacoast. At the furthest south, the border passes through the island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea, whose space is at the center of Marco Poloni's work Displacement Island (2006). Starting from this work, the contribution develops a conversation that from the maritime border in the Mediterranean Sea lands on the internal European border between Italy and Switzerland. Engaging with the authors personal and research experience, the conversation touches upon different topics: the contemporary migrations across the maritime space, the Mediterranean Sea as a fluid space crossed by multiple flows, the dynamic link between north and south margins, the potential of photography and its assemblages in constellations as a form to imagine another space, the value of research and production of artworks in the field.
Books by Nicoletta Grillo
Photography and Invisible Borders: Spaces of Imagination between Switzerland and Italy, 2024
Chapter 2 of the book “Photography and Invisible Borders: Spaces of Imagination between Switzerla... more Chapter 2 of the book “Photography and Invisible Borders: Spaces of Imagination between Switzerland and Italy” introduces the concept of a borderscape, examining its emergence in the multidisciplinary realm of border studies, as a conceptual framework for understanding the complexity of borders. To explore the notion’s significance, the chapter explores the root term “landscape,” from which the suffix “scape” is derived. This suffix embodies a dual meaning, encompassing both polity and scenery. “Scape” as polity, linked to the verb “shape,” refers to human spaces moulded over time through daily activities and practices—like walking—granting certain land rights. It connects landscapes to the political spaces of communities. Conversely, “scape” as scenery pertains to open views and aesthetic representations, echoing the origins of landscape painting. This duality is analysed in relation to Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Census at Bethlehem (1566), exploring political and scenic perspectives. The chapter then transitions from historical landscape painting to contemporary photography, examining Allan Sekula’s Sketch for a Geography Lesson (1983), a photographic work developed on the East German-West German border. In doing so, it establishes a methodological approach to studying borderscapes as dynamic spaces shaped, seen, represented, and experienced by diverse subjectivities.
Photography and Invisible Borders: Spaces of Imagination between Switzerland and Italy, 2024
Chapter 4 of the book “Photography and Invisible Borders: Spaces of Imagination between Switzerla... more Chapter 4 of the book “Photography and Invisible Borders: Spaces of Imagination between Switzerland and Italy” redirects attention to Italy’s southern margins, dynamically connected to the north. Following the migration “crisis” at the Como-Chiasso border, migrants initially arriving in the south advanced towards the northern margin for further European movement. At the southernmost point, the border traverses the island of Lampedusa, a focal point explored in Displacement Island (2006), a photographic work by artist Marco Poloni. Poloni’s method, assembling visual constellations, offers a unique epistemology, transcending purely perspective and linear representations. Lampedusa emerges in this constellation as a fluid and evolving space. The chapter later introduces Henri Lefebvre’s theory on the production of space, emphasising the processual existence of the borderscape and challenging hegemonic representations. Lefebvre posits space as a product of nature and human activity, delineating three interconnected categories: spatial practices, representation of spaces, and spaces of representation. These categories address the material, normative, and symbolic dimensions of space. In the chapter’s conclusion, Lefebvre’s theory is applied to Poloni’s work on Lampedusa, delineating the three dimensions of space within the island’s imaginative constellation. Lefebvre advocates reclaiming dominated space and representations through imagination. The chapter links this to the potential of photography and its constellations as a means of envisioning an alternative space.
Photography and Invisible Borders: Spaces of Imagination between Switzerland and Italy, 2024
Think of national borders beyond just lines: this invitation guides Nicoletta Grillo’s journey in... more Think of national borders beyond just lines: this invitation guides Nicoletta Grillo’s journey into the Swiss-Italian border, a journey shaped through the lens of photography theory and practice. Moving between contemporary cross-border work and south-north migrations, this study unveils today’s borderscapes as dynamic constellations of spatial practices and imaginations. The book delves into landscape representations by combining the analysis of contemporary photographic artwork with field research and with the author’s own photographs, displayed in an extensive photo-textual travelogue. Perspectives from critical border studies, research in the arts, and urban studies come together to offer a larger reflection on the re-imagination of borderscapes.
Photography and Invisible Borders: Spaces of Imagination between Switzerland and Italy, 2024
Chapter 5 of the book “Photography and Invisible Borders: Spaces of Imagination between Switzerla... more Chapter 5 of the book “Photography and Invisible Borders: Spaces of Imagination between Switzerland and Italy” develops a mobile epistemology of the Swiss-Italian borderscape, moving on the ground along trajectories of cross-border work and migration. Combining methodologies from urban studies, art history, photography, and practice-based research, the chapter builds a travelogue in two sections. A photographic narrative and a textual narrative, at the same time autonomous and interrelated, complement each other. The photographic narrative is made of a series of photographs shot by the author and of other images from different sources, including archives. Writings from fieldwork and extracts of conversations come together into the textual narrative. The photo-textual travelogue examines the multifaceted aspects of the Swiss-Italian border. It looks into the daily life and spatial dynamics leading to the border, encompassing such spaces as a nursery for cross-border workers’ children, a bar, commuter parking lots, and residential areas. The narrative unfolds through walks across border woods, interweaving local legends and reaching industrial compounds. The morning rush at the border, voices of workers, and flows towards the “fashion valley” industrial area and Lugano are explored. The temporal dimension is considered at a migrant centre in Como. A transnational train journey reveals use of the train’s use by cross-border workers and the challenges faced by migrants attempting to cross. Spatial shifts into car parks, used for both worker commutes and migrant accommodation after the so-called migration crisis of 2016, are examined. The chapter also explores night walks, smuggling activities, and the gendered dimension of the borderscape, particularly the presence of brothels. The complex strategy of migrant transfers from the northern border to Taranto in Southern Italy, implemented in response to the migration crisis, serves as a concluding focal point, illustrating the extended territorial dimensions of the border’s reality.
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Papers by Nicoletta Grillo
Books by Nicoletta Grillo