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On the border – August 18, 2017 / September 11, 2017 / 290 km, 25 days, 198 border stones, 212 artworks
In the summer of 2017, Noris walked the 290 km of the Spanish-French border in the province of Girona, through which the principal routes of the republican exile ran. During the walk, the artist painted a work corresponding to each of the 198 milestones that mark the border. To walk and paint, joining together points along the border, as though balancing on that invisible line that divides in two that which is one, making visible what is invisible and opening up in this way a new stage for memory.
Over these past four years I have been working with the landscape as a stage and as a border, but always from the comfort and distance of the studio. The need for direct experience, to put myself out there and confront the real without any filters, is what led me to undertake “On the Border”.
The project involves walking the entire Spanish-French border in the county of Girona and making a small oil painting at each of the 198 milestones that mark the limit between the two countries. It will not be a visual documentation of the milestones (which have already been photographically catalogued), but rather an emotional recording of the environment, according to whatever the geographical and environmental conditions may be. For this reason, the extreme connection with the environment and the present moment that open-air painting permits is fundamental to allowing the project to acquire a strong experiential value. In this sense, the pieces are not the objective of the journey: the experience itself is the goal, the experience of making and being the border, the introspection of a long walk in nature, the journey and its difficulties. To paint pieces as if they were markers and to walk joining together points along the the border, as though balancing on that invisible line that divides in two what is one, is to make visible the invisible and thus open up a new setting for memory.
+ INFO ABOUT THE PROJECT
- Blog: http://ouroboros.marconoris.com/tag/en-frontera/
- La Capella web page
- The video
- On the Border on betevé TV: http://beteve.cat/clip/pantalles-a-la-frontera/
- Instagram: #norisenfrontera
- Facebook: #norisenfrontera
- Twitter: #norisenfrontera
+ INFO ABOUT SPANISH-FRENCH BORDER STONES
- The route of the project and its milestones: https://goo.gl/GGJB9W
- Catalog of the milestones of the Catalan section: mojonesdelospirineos.com
- All the milestones of the Spanish-French border: http://www.grpdesbf.nl/
Muga (“border stone”) is a word of Basque origin used in the Catalan Pyrenees instead of mojón (or hito, in Spanish) and fita (in Catalan). Here is an article written by Josep Estruch for “On the Border” on the etymology of the word.