The Glasgow School of Art

Ursula Biemann
'The Maghreb Connection: Counter-Geographies in the Sahara' watch video

Since the fortification of the European outer rim and the pressure on Maghreb countries to stem migration flows from the South, the Sahara basin has become a contested zone of mobility. We witness a large-scale geographic reconfiguration activated by the growing and highly flexible practices of migration, proficient at rerouting, reorganizing or going covert in record time. Diverting the attention from the present fascination with power geographies and repressive border regimes, The Maghreb Connection (2005-2007), a collaborative research and exhibition project based in Cairo, explores the counter-geographies constituted by clandestine operating systems, innovative practices of resistance and migratory self-determination. The second part of the presentation introduces Biemann's Sahara Chronicle, a video collection on the post-colonial entanglement underlying the present sub-Saharan exodus towards Europe.

Ursula Biemann is an artist, theorist and curator based in Zurich. She studied in New York at the School of Visual Arts (BFA) and at the Whitney ISP. Biemann has in recent years produced a considerable body of work on migration, mobility, technology and gender. In a series of widely exhibited video essays, as well as in several books - 'Geography and the Politics of Mobility' (2003), 'Stuff It - the Video Essay in the Digital Age' (2003), and her new monograph 'Geobodies' (Actar, 2008) - she has focused on migrant labour: from smuggling on the Spanish-Moroccan border to women in the global sex industry. Her recent 2-channel videos include 'Black Sea Files' on the Caspian oil geography and 'Sahara Chronicle', Arnolfini, Bristol. Her curatorial projects 'B-Zone - Becoming Europe and Beyond', and 'The Maghreb Connection' are carried out in complex forms of collaboration. Ursula Biemann is a Researcher at the Institute for Art and Design Theory in Zurich.

Hosted by The School of Fine Art, The Friday Event Lecture Series is The Glasgow School of Art's flagship public lecture series, and brings major international speakers (including artists, architects, designers, historians and cultural theorists) to the city of Glasgow.