Old border crossing points that are still standing, but out of order and abandoned, in several countries of the European Union.
Before 1985 Schengen (Luxembourg)population of 500, near the border between France and Germany was only known to a handful of gourmets, due to its excellent white wines of the Moselle. From this date onwards, it has changed radically: Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg signed a famous treaty in this small village on June 14th that eliminated border controls between signatory states, allowing the free movement of individuals and goods. This quite revolutionary treaty came into force in 1995, and in the following years almost all states of the European Union (plus some that do not belong to the Union) were added to the free-movement zone.
The After Schengen series shows, quite a few years later, images of some of these border crossings which are still in place, although abandoned and out of order. Before the Schengen treaty, they delimited territories; travellers had to stop and show their documents. Today they appear as phantasmagorical places, situated in a spatiotemporal limbo, out of use and of the time for which they were conceived.
Every time I get to a border crossing to take pictures, loaded with my old large format Calumet, I am confronted with all kind of signs (stop, achtung, arrows) and barriers which at some point have regulated movements, itineraries and behaviors which now appear absurd and out of context: old and familiar voices speak to me about the arbitrariness of control systems, about their pure artifice, their alienating character and the huge imbalance between the power of the states and their relationship with individuals.
They also speak to me about small personal stories, of divided families and fraternal hatred. Of fear of the neighbor and hate for the immigrant. Of indifference towards what happens outside their own borders (something I still perceive today) and of governments who’d prefer we just gazed at our own navel, making very clear that our country (whichever) is better than the others, and therefore promoting rivalry. Why look at our own problems? This reaches significant levels of poignancy in sporting events.
Border crossings serve as geographical markers, but also display a coercive function, in the sense of preventing the free movement among people from one state to another. That’s why they are places that, together with a cartographic dimension, also provide historical, economic and political reminiscences.
Sometimes, especially in borders of the ancient Iron Curtain, when asking several elderly people for the location of the no longer used border, no one was able to place it or even indicate the correct direction. Then it turned out that the crossing was less than 10 kilometers away. It was as if over the years they had learned not to look that way. Nothing good could come from there—a modern Finisterre.
Thus, After Schengen is an optimistic work, critical but optimistic. It speaks of a state of things that is better now than before. However, those old familiar voices I heard on the border crossings seem to resonate again in these controversial times. Terms like ‘strainer’ (Marine Le Pen) or ‘migratory tsunami’ (Berlusconi) suggest the idea of closing off the doors to the countryside. History sometimes takes unexpected turns. I hope in this case it doesn’t make a U-turn and goes ahead, quietly jumping the stop sign. After all, there are no more customs officers to fine it...