"Die Schweizermacher"
Keywords: borders/boundaries, language, performance, technology, objects
The project brings one inside the Swiss State Secretariat for Migration, Office for Security and Permits, where the documents regulating the presence of foreigners in Switzerland are printed. The Swiss immigration system distinguishes seven different residency permits for the newcomers. By critically forging the outcomes of their laws within the design of the documents themselves, I aim to investigate the way in which they produce different degrees of conformation: precise models of mobility, temporality, and belonging, towards which people are forced to. Conformation through official recognition therefore defines the degree and type of hospitality the foreigner will be able to access.
The word guest comes from the Latin "hospes", which in return shares the root with "hostis", enemy: the first indicates a favourable foreigner, the second a hostile one. The distinction between a "good" or a "bad" guest is nowadays operated through paper, the assignments of different colors and codes, and the different imprinted texts within it. In the project, the design features that are used to legitimize documents are re-crafted using materials coming from the practices and temporalities strictly within which they are valid and legitimate themselves. The compiling within paper that this forgery presents is an attempt to focus on what hospitality demands rather than on what it provides.