SLOVENIA,
A TRANSIT COUNTRY
A MULTIMEDIA PROJECT ON WORKERS IN THE TOURIST INDUSTRY
AND THEIR CUSTOMERS
ADDITIONAL
INFORMATION:
A series of audio-visual projects under
the
joint heading of Zone, studies conflicting situations of contemporary
social relations. The zones are areas, they are territories and
out-of-the-way alleys and they are the roads of separation, lost and
found within a larger and seemingly organized, regulated space. These
are the constantly changing stories of individuals from the areas of
the developing socio-political, cultural and territorial relations,
which can lead to both extremely homogeneous cohabitation and self
existence, as well as cataclysmic and unsolvable conflicting frictions
and situations.
The project Zone TOURISM is the fourth
project
in the series Zone, a work that analyses conflict situations within the
sphere relating to social strata. Zones are undefined, controversial
areas within bigger, seemingly, legally regulated environments; "the
zones" are foreigners, illegal inhabitants of a settled space, defined
by state borders. The Zone TOURISM depicts also those, who facilitate
this population of non-inhabitants a clandestine crossing and
traversing of this established territory.
The Zone TOURISM is a multimedia project
on
tour organizers and their customers.
In the project Zone TOURISM, the
relationship
between a local and a foreigner is reversed – protagonists don't seek
the opportunity to communicate, to converse or even to co-exist
anymore. Their relashionship is reduced to a basic level; it is a
brutal, bare market relationship, where a local due to the financial
incentives and due to their good knowledge of his/her home territory,
assumes the role of a guide/orginizer, and where a foreigner is forced
to pay for the guide's services, is also forced to accept the
assistance of an tourist agency, because he/she left his/her home
environment and couldn't obtain the legal permits for crossing or
living in a country from the relevent authorities.
The project Zone TOURISM portrays the
guides
of illegal migrants. Through their stories, the guides shed light on
the illegal border crossings and relationships, which develop within
given situations. On the one hand we have the guides, the organizers of
the illegal border crossings; on the other, we have public opinion and
the body of persecution, people who speak for the official authorities
positioning, who are representatives of the law. Within other wording –
the project depicts organizers of the illegal border crossings, who are
seen here and now as internationally organized criminals, although some
cases from the past displays that an illegal border crossing could be a
heroic act (the Berlin Wall) and not only percieved as a criminal
offence. This project was made possible by anonymous sources of
information and some prisoners from the Maribor prison and the
day-release department at Rogoza.
INTRODUCTION
We prepared the ZoneTourism project
together
with those who are directly involved in the organisation and the
realisation of illegal border crossing, i.e. with those who are here
and are now treated as criminals, who are part of a local or
international criminal organisation and who with different means,
enable immigrants without legal permits to cross national borders and
travel within a country, outside their country of origin.
We spoke to different anonymous sources
and
convicts who were sentenced
according to Article 311 of the Penal Code of the Republic of Slovenia.
The stories and statements are thematically presented in full. The
interviews took place between July and October of 2004. All
interviewees are anonymous, in compliance with the law in relation to
the Personal Data Protection act.
The statements from the police
representative
were recorded on October
16, 2004 at the border crossing of Obrežje, where a lecture with
regards to national border protection policies within through a
workshop for journalists entitled "Reporting on Migrations – Welcome to
the Fortress", organized by the Peace Institute.
The Zone Tourism is a project, examining
workers in the tourist industry and their clients.
- Authors:
Brane Zorman, Irena Pivka
- Collabolators:
Aldo Milohnic , Marjeta
Doupna Horvat
- Catalogue
design by : Sonia Pust AJAX
- Translations:
Polona Mertelj in Finbar
Barry OMahonay
- Produced by : MASKA LJUBLJANA 2005,
www.maska.si