Clandestines 2029? [Installation at Galleri Pokorná, 2009]
162 g/m2 glass fabric, epoxy; 4 x 10 m


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Part of Prague Festival – PF 09, which commemorates 20 years of democracy in Czech Republic.
In her installation Norberg outlines a small, life-size boat, its shape drawn from the fishing boats that transport African refugees to the "haven" of Europe. The shape of the boat is not complete but merely hinted at by cross-sections, enabling the viewers to walk inside and around the boat. The cross-sections are made from industrial boat building material; glass fiber weave. The weave is very thin and when coated with epoxy it becomes transparent. The boat is installed to allow viewers to imagine being inside a "little boat tossed by the waves" as Václav Havel wrote in The Power of the Powerless in 1978.

Clandestines is what the Italian immigration officers call the arriving refugees, but it is also the feminine plural form of the French adjective Clandestin which means "secret" or "concealed". The artwork comments of the sacrifice, both in terms of the humane devastation but also the cultural loss, of a united, and sealed off, Europe. Where are the borders in 2029?