Boundless Culture at Transborder Café
The Norwegian artists’ collective Pikene på Broen is just a 15-minute drive from the Russian border and only 50 minutes from Finland. Accordingly, the members know a thing or two about boundaries and cordially invite the public to a discussion of them.
Pikene på Broen from the Norwegian border town of Kirkenes has conceived its series of Transborder Cafés as open discussions of current political and cultural issues featuring contributions by artists, musicians, authors and scholars, each accompanied by foods and beverages appropriate to the respective theme and interspersed by musical intermezzi. Border-Crossing Exercises is the title of the first such event, which is being staged in conjunction with Linz09’s Extra Europa project.The second evening poses the question: Control or Rock’n’Roll? (the motto of the Barents Spectacle staged in winter in Kirkenes). This conceptual juxtaposition is meant to serve as food for thought and suggests that rock’n’roll—here, a proxy for art and culture—is a non-governmental alternative to border control.
Sámi Salami, the third and final evening, spotlights the steadfastness and, at the same time, fragility of the culture of the Sámi people, indigenous inhabitants of northern Scandinavia.
Last year in Kirkenes, Extra Europa project director Susanne Puchberger attended a Transborder Café and still raves about her experience: “It’s really impressive what the curators have achieved by way of boundary-transcending cultural work up there in Europe’s Great White North!”
So don’t miss this border-traversing experience in early April at the OK Offenes Kulturhaus Oberösterreich!
Pikene på Broen: Transborder Cafés – Border-Crossing Exercises
April 2, 2009, 7 PM
OK Offenes Kulturhaus, OK-Platz 1, Linz
Free admission
Pikene på Broen: Transborder Cafés – Control or Rock’n’Roll
April 3, 2009, 7 PM
OK Offenes Kulturhaus, OK-Platz 1, Linz
Free admission
Pikene på Broen: Transborder Cafés – Sámi Salami
April 4, 2009, 7 PM
OK Offenes Kulturhaus, OK-Platz 1, Linz
Free admission
