From the Balkans to Lampedusa: Fortress Europe, Migrants, and Refugees

<p>This conversation with Ana Dana Beroš—the last one of the Western Balkans series—addresses the two main migration routes to access “Fortress Europe,” the road through the Balkans, in particular through Croatia from where we recorded it, as well as the road through the Mediterranean Sea. We begin by describing the current means undertaken in Croatia in order to facilitate the route of refugees, as well as the obstacles encountered. In the second part of the conversation, we use <em>Intermundia, </em>the exhibition/book curated last year by Ana Dana to address the status of the Italian island of Lampedusa, considered as a European outpost in the migratory routes from North Africa. We describe, in particular, the former migrant detention center that Ana Dana was able to visit and document, and use this example to address architects’ responsibility in the violence of European immigration politics.</p> <p>Ana Dana Beroš is an architect and curator, exhibition maker interested in creating uncertain, fragile environments and using empathic methods in presenting contemporary art and architecture, from infiltration to engagement. She has been recognised as an early-career architect and selected a finalist for the Wheelwright Prize awarded by Harvard University’s GSD in 2014. Her curatorial research project on trans-European migration <em>Intermundia </em>received a Special Mention at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition <em>Fundamentals</em>, curated by Rem Koolhaas. Beroš is the Zagreb curator of <em>Actopolis</em> – <em>Art of Action</em> platform initiated by the Athens Goethe Institute, on a concept by Angelika Fitz (2015-2017). Ana Dana is the co-founder of the Zagreb group <em>ARCHIsquad</em>, a <em>Division for architecture with conscience</em>, and coordinator of its educational programs: <em>Out of Focus: Architecture of Giving</em>(2007-2008) and <em>*urgentArchitecture</em>, open advisory centres for citizens on how to ameliorate their immediate surroundings (2011-2015). She is one of the initiators of <em>Think Space</em> program of conceptual architectural competitions (2011-2015) and co-curator of its exhibition <em>Competitive Hypothesis</em> (Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, 2013). Author of many exhibition designs, her latest project <em>Tortureum</em> is an experimental museum, a reminder of the history of torture and the invisibility of contemporary violence (Zagreb, 2015). Ana Dana is a former editor and a member of the advisory board of the Croatian magazine <em>Oris</em> (2007-2015), as well a contributing author for Croatian Radio within <em>Reality of Space</em> series of interviews on politics and poetics of space, with international architects, theorists and critics (2014-2016).</p>