Study Day – Riverine Borders

Waterways are essential components of the living and non-living world. They shape landscapes and serve as demarcation lines – as “natural borders” – between states in many parts of the world. In addition to being lines that separate, rivers and streams are also lines that connect, and borderland territories are often particularly rich places of life, interaction, passage, porosity, cross-pollination and exchange.

The accompanying program to Zoe Leonard’s exhibition “Al río / To the River” (02/02-06/06/2022) organized by UniGR-CBS's partners focused on the materiality of these river borders both from a territorial, geographical, and political point of view, and also from a metaphorical perspective. 

The exhibition’s accompanying program included also the Study day “Riverine Borders: On rivers and other border materialities” with citizens, students, researchers and artists. The event took place on the 20th May 2022 in the Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg (MUDAM) and gathered 6 speakers from 4 different countries and more than 25 students from the Greater Region.

The first section of the Study day was dedicated to the materiality of the river. The UniGR-CBS member Rebekka Kanesu from Trier University raised the question when and how a river is made into a “marker of division” or no border at all in her talk. She therefore analysed the hydrosociality of the Mosel River.
 

^{Photo credits: Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean | leoh Ming Pei Architect Design | Photo: Rémi Villaggi}

The second section focused on the river as a metaphor. With the example of La Llorona, the former UniGR-CBS guest researcher Daniela Johannes presented contemporary borderlands literature and how it re-defines the emotional responses of women in relation to the affective agencies of water.

Astrid Fellner raised multiple questions on new border epistemologies in her talk “Bridging Rivers/Undoing Broder: Queer Border Practices on the US-Mexican Border”.
 

_{Photo credits: UniGR-CBS and Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean | leoh Ming Pei Architect Design | Photo: Rémi Villaggi}

More information about the Study Day here

A cooperation project of the The Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg and the UniGR-Center for Border Studies: University of Luxembourg (Department of Geography and Spatial Planning), Saarland University (North American Literary and Cultural Studies) and Trier University (Center for American Studies).