Through the Prism of Borders: Five artistic interventions within the collaborative research project B-Shapes – Borders Shaping Perceptions of European Societies
B-Shapes investigates the role of borders in shaping societies, culture, heritage, and belonging. Lungomare, a cooperative for cultural production, partners with eight European universities and various institutions, including a research institute, a national museum, a foundation, a political association, and a consultancy. Through its site-specific artistic productions, Lungomare contributes to a deeper exploration of public, individual, and spatial narratives, encouraging a more nuanced understanding of borderlands.
Under the theme Through the Prism of Borders, artistic interventions take place in two European borderlands. Boris Missirkov & Georgi Bogdanov, Esra Ersen, Ivan Moudov, and ZimmerFrei explore the southeastern European border between Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, while Zorka Wollny works in Český Těšín/Cieszyn, a city divided by the Czechia-Poland border. These performative acts engage with the concept of ‘borderscaping,’ shifting the perception of borders from fixed lines to dynamic spaces shaped by experiences, interactions, and political possibilities.
The artistic works explore questions such as: How can border narratives be revisited and deconstructed? How do cultural and historical phenomena shape landscapes? How do borderlanders navigate their borders? What cross-cultural exchanges define European identities and influence the perception of borders?
Episode 1 – Polska : Česko | Sound Match
by Zorka Wollny
Borderland: Czechia-Poland
2–3 October 2024
Český Těšín/Cieszyn
The performative concert Sound Match in the former synagogue in Český Těšín and at the Krytyka Polityczna Center in Cieszyn, addresses the question: How does a border resonate?
In collaboration with composer Martin Dytko, Zorka Wollny explores this question through a sound-based project in Český Těšín/Cieszyn and Ostrava. By engaging local residents, the project examines bordering practices as an integral part of daily life. In this context, the border is not just a historical marker, but a dynamic space that shapes identity and belonging.
Episode 2 – Artistic Journeys In-Between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey
Borderland: Bulgaria-Greece-Turkey
9 April–29 August 2025
National History Museum in Sofia
The exhibition Through the Prism of Borders – Episode 2: Artistic Journeys In-Between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey at the National History Museum in Sofia examines the complex socio-political landscape of Europe’s southeasternmost border. Site-specific works by Esra Ersen, Boris Missirkov & Georgi Bogdanov, Ivan Moudov, and ZimmerFrei address remnants of the past, local border symbolism, and the experiences of those who traverse these lands. The proposed artworks reflect on suppressed voices, challenge official narratives, and propose alternative ways to perceive and remember borders. By seeing borders as thresholds rather than barriers, the project fosters dialogue and redefines borders as evolving spaces of shared histories and futures.
Artists
Episode 1 – Polska : Česko | Sound Match
Zorka Wollny
Borderland: Czechia-Poland
How does a border resonate? Zorka Wollny invites composer and musician Martin Dytko to a sound match exploring borderscapes in Czechia-Poland. In a co-creative process with residents from Český Těšín/Cieszyn and Ostrava, they delve into narratives surrounding the meanings and materializations of bordering practices, as part of everyday life. The voice and sound-based research conceives the borderland as a place of encounter, interaction, and clash. Therefore, the border is seen not just as a point where various histories converge, but also as a space that shapes both individual and collective processes of identity formation and belonging, continuously transforming, contesting, and subverting the socio-political order. As the idea of Europe and the European Project undergo transformation, it becomes vital that diverse voices shape their emerging meaning. What futures can be imagined from here?
The performative concerts take place on October 2–3, 2024, at the former synagogue in Český Těšín as part of the city’s 33rd International Theatre Festival Without Borders, and at the Krytyka Polityczna Center in Cieszyn. These performances are featured in a video work by the artist that introduces the participants, provides insights into the production process, and further elaborates on questions surrounding bordering practices between Czechia and Poland.
Participants:
CZK Team: Kateřina Rézi Szopová, Zuzana Sekerová, Joa Ferfecki, Pepe Valíků , lead by Martin Dytko
PL Team: Weronika Masarska, Paulina Łyczek, Dawid Bury, Anita Kramarczyk & Fiona Swoboda, lead by Zorka Wollny
With the support of Natalia Kałuża, Anna Pluta and Joanna Wowrzeczka
of Krytyka Polityczna Center in Cieszyn, as well as Petra Slováček Rypienová and Stefan Mańka, directors of the 33. International Theatre Festival Without Borders.
Comissioned by Lungomare as part of the B-Shapes project.
Photos from the performative concert Sound Match by Zorka Wollny, October 2024 - Photos : Rafał Soliński
The Travelling Monument
Boris Missirkov & Georgi Bogdanov
Borderland: Bulgaria-Greece-Turkey
The project The Travelling Monument by Georgi Bogdanov and Boris Missirkov focuses on a monument that does not exist yet.
Bulgaria has over a dozen memorials dedicated to border guards, mostly near the border with Greece and Turkey. However, there is not a single monument in memory of those who lose their lives trying to escape the Eastern Bloc through these borders. Many people, mostly young, attempt to flee to the West between 1944 and 1990 – and many of them are simply shot down by border patrols. The exact number of victims remains unknown. The rough estimate is that over 500 Bulgarian citizens and many others from other Socialist countries lose their lives there. This topic has been largely ignored over the past thirty years, apart from a number of short documentaries and a few articles, the faces and names of these victims remain anonymous. The Travelling Monument is dedicated to the people who lose their lives attempting to escape the Eastern Bloc through the Bulgarian borders.
The artists explore the possibility of devising an imaginary and traveling anti-monument, which is dislocated along the border, becoming a provocative intervention in various landscapes.
Comissioned by Lungomare as part of the B-Shapes project.
Photos from the artistic research by Georgi Bogdanov and Boris Missirkov, June 2024, site-visit in the Border Region Bulgaria, Greece
Border Walks
Ivan Moudov
Borderland: Bulgaria-Greece-Turkey
The Border Walks project by Ivan Moudov explores the border region of Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, beginning with the foraging of wild mushrooms as the central activity, process, or outcome, drawing on various artistic and literary traditions.
Fungi and their vegetative apparatus enter into symbiosis with other organisms and create an underground network of invisible, interdependent and inextricable relationships. Delving into the mushroom deposits and the art of foraging, through hikes and interactions with local communities, the project searches for parallels between the natural environments and landscapes along the three borders, based on first-hand experience. Studying the structure of fungal ecosystems and the narratives of forests allows us to understand the potential for shared existence, amid human interventions that often lead to the destruction of nature.
The artist collaborates with writers during walks along the three-sided borders, offering a way to imagine future landscapes free of mental and physical boundaries, weaving together verbal and visual narratives.
Comissioned by Lungomare as part of the B-Shapes project.
Photos from the artistic research by Ivan Moudov, August 2024, site-visit in the Border Region Bulgaria, Greece
Traces of the Past, Ghost of the Future
Esra Ersen
Borderland: Bulgaria-Greece-Turkey
When observing Eastern and South-Eastern Europe from a distance, we may note that it has been historically – and in some cases still is – characterised by the diversity of languages and ethnic backgrounds among its population. However, this diversity, which might be viewed as a source of cultural wealth, contrasts with the border demarcations in place since the nineteenth century, whose implicit aim was to create defined spaces for homogeneous communities.
In her work, Esra Ersen addresses the people affected by the processes of bordering between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, which remain a poignant reminder of past injustices for minorities. She exemplarily focuses on the population that, over the course of these bordering processes, was most significantly impacted by state-sponsored homogenisation and, as a result, forced migration. Using this border triangle as an example, she researches how individual, public, and spatial narratives influence the practices of memory, and which truths (or legends) are told on either side of the border.
For on the one hand, there are the real borders, geographically, politically, and publicly anchored, and then there are the imaginary borders – those that are not tied to a piece of land but that rather persist in transgenerational communities through mentality and memories.
Comissioned by Lungomare as part of the B-Shapes project.
Photos from the artistic research by Esra Ersen, March 2024, site-visit in the Border Region Bulgaria, Greece
The Answer Is Out There
ZimmerFrei | Anna de Manincor
Borderland: Bulgaria-Greece-Turkey
The ZimmerFrei group creates a short film for B-Shapes, composed of soundscapes, voices, and sudden visions recorded on 16 mm film on the Bulgarian-Turkish border.
These narratives and film footage focus on the almost completely uninhabited landscape and dense forests, the Black Sea, and the Resovo River, which marks the southeasternmost point of Europe. The project also highlights the experiences of the people – the borderlanders – who share their stories of living and working at the border. Borderlands are spaces that oscillate between being a bridge and a barrier, and the people inhabiting these strips of land navigate these raised and lowered, restored and transgressed, surveyed and liberated boundaries.
ZimmerFrei explores places and stories from multiple perspectives, examining how perceptions of borders shift when observed from different vantage points and modes of movement. Their evolving film reels aim to condense experiences, aspirations and dreams, leaving lasting traces of encounters that give rise to silent glimpses, new questions and unresolved listening.
ZimmerFrei’s B-Shapes ‘Borderwalks’ are staged with Ivano Lollo (cameraman), Nikol Delcheva (interpreter) and the help of Shado and Fondazione Home Movies, two Italian non-profit organisations devoted to analogue photography and private archives on film. Thanks for their help during the field research go to Cveta Petkova, Nikol Delcheva.
Comissioned by Lungomare as part of the B-Shapes project.
Photos from the artistic research by ZimmerFrei, February 2024, site-visit in the Border Region Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey
Borderlands

