Notes #2

A phenomenological analysis of Europe – understood as a political idea – what would it consist of?

In spring, I have been taking photos on the German – French border next to Saarbrücken (Bliesbrück and Goldene Bremm to be precise). I walked around in the empty space between the two states, observing and recording. The border is invisible but it surely exists. It creates a unique type of space that is different from the two entities who are separated by the border itself. That means consequently that France and Germany aren’t touching each other but are rather separated by a broader border region. In this region, characteristics of the two states are distorted and mixed together in an unknown and unregulated manner. The region is an intermediary third that can be accessed from both sides as a subject of cognition. Speaking of borders therefore means speaking of a shared space and uncovering, within and through the own discurse, the individual perspective on that space.