“Yes, Europe is a garden. We have built a garden. Everything works. It is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity, and social cohesion that humanity has been able to construct — the three things together […] Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden.”
Josep Borrell, Former High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
Bruges, 13 October 2022, European Diplomatic Academy: opening remarks
The travelling exhibition The Garden of the (In)visibles presents objects abandoned by migrants in the border areas between Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy. These objects were collected in 2023 by students and lecturers/researchers from the University of Primorska (Koper, Slovenia) and the University of Trieste (Italy) as a joint project within the Transform4Europe Alliance (T4EU).
Abandoned after a long and arduous journey on foot by people of diverse origins from Asia and Africa, these objects are everyday items used for eating, sleeping, keeping warm, and healing, but also artefacts that speak of the intimate and spiritual sphere. In the first exhibition, these visible material traces were placed in “our” garden in order to document “invisible” migratory presences. From all the collected material, only a small selection was chosen to travel across Europe with this new exhibition through seven of the ten universities that make up the T4EU Alliance: UNITS (University of Trieste, Italy), UP (University of Primorska, Slovenia), USARR (Saarland University, Germany), UCP (Catholic University of Portugal, Portugal), SU (Sofia University, Bulgaria), UA (University of Alicante, Spain), and USIL (University of Silesia, Poland).
We invite you to walk through The Garden of the (In)visibles as if it were a border area, encountering the objects abandoned by migrants on their way to Europe.
What do these objects represent to you? Rubbish or traces?