I ARE BORDER is the ideal continuation of the artist’s intervention presented at the National Pavilion of the United Republic of Tanzania at the 61. International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia.

The exhibition brings together installations, sculptures and paintings, in an itinerary that invites the audience to take part in a shared reflection. Through interaction, sensorial experience and the symbolic dimension of the works, the visitor is invited to question the concept of threshold, contemporary identities and the historical time we are living in. The title I ARE BORDER seemingly presents a grammatical error by pairing the plural verb “are” with the first-person singular pronoun. However, this deliberate choice prompts a reflection on the intrinsic belonging of the individual to their surroundings. Thus, the whole is an interlocking of elements, separated and distinct, but united, who enter in relationship with each other.

 

The Matto (Fool), protagonist of the artist’s work in the National Pavilion, tears apart the flags of the world and reassembles them, giving shape to a utopian vision that takes form as a symbolic possibility for regeneration and coexistence. On this occasion, instead, he becomes the traveller who crosses both real and inner territories in search for an alternative, invisible border, capable of connecting rather than dividing. It is a liminal figure, close to the archaeological archetype of the trickster: one who observes, translates (according to the latin principle of tradère), and challenges the existing order, imagining new ways of reminding us that every human being belongs to a shared, deeply interconnected history.

I ARE BORDER thus proposes an exercise in collective imagination, inviting everyone to rethink the meaning of limits and to chart new forms of relation.

 

In the paintings, the bull, a recurrent symbol in Balzano’s practice, serves as a metaphor for the dynamics that cross borders: sometimes conflict, sometimes connection and generation. The maps weave together territories and belongings into unprecedented geographies, while a series of cast aluminum gongs suspended from the ceiling invite the visitor to interact as an integral part of the artwork, transforming the exhibition space into a territory to be traversed and inhabited. 

 

Balzano’s practice aims to spark questions in the minds of those who contemplate it, inviting them to look beyond the surface, reconsidering what they truly believe they know. His art, inspiration for dialogue and collision, thus becomes the origin of a space that is home to the world’s complexity, embraced in its hyper-connected fragmentation.