• Fri 30 09 – Sun 30 10 2016 •
Border Ferry Service IV Birgit auf der Lauer & Caspar Pauli

Fri 30 9 2016 / 19:00
Exhibition opening
Sun 30 10 2016 / 19:00
Closing event

Opening hours of the gallery space: Fri/Sat 17:00–19:00
Walks Sat 1 10 2016 / 16:00, Sun 2 10 2016 / 16:00, Sat 8 10 2016 / 16:00, Sun 9 10 2016 / 16:00,  Fri 28 10 2016 / 16:00, Sat 29 10 2016 / 16:00, Sun 30 10 2016 / 16:00
Duration: up to three hours
The walks will take place in any weather condition, please dress accordingly and bring some change for public transport.

Venue: LABOR, Ebertplatzpassage 5, 50668 Cologne
Free admission
In German

Joint event with LABOR

When refugees lose their lives on the way to the EU, the media usually places the blame squarely on human traffickers, who transport migrants to their destination, no questions asked. Human smugglers are facilitators of entry for whom refugees are nothing but “travelers.” Their aim is to achieve an objective transfer across closed borders and along reversed colonial routes. The artist duo Birgit Auf der Lauer and Caspar Pauli project the ambivalent practice of human smuggling back onto Cologne’s Ebertplatz, a car-friendly bomb crater of a space dissected by a pedestrian underpass. In their project Border Ferry Service IV, they invite the Cologne audience join them for an urban walk, framed by an installation in the project gallery LABOR. Taking on the role of traffickers, they suggest an alternative image of the human smuggler as a builder of bridges, a storyteller, and a harbinger of change.

The Berlin-based artist duo Birgit Auf der Lauer and Caspar Pauli has been collaborating since their graduation in 2011 (UdK Berlin and KHB). In 2014, they received a grant from the ifa Artists' Contact program, in 2015 a three-year studio scholarship from the BBK Berlin studio program. The performances in the framework of their project Border Ferry Service were shown at the 2. Berliner Herbstsalon in the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin in 2015.