Clara Schade-Poulsen: Border Materialities – (In)visibilities at the Austrian-Hungarian frontier

“Keep the migrants out!” is the message European anti-immigrant discourses evolve around. One solution given is increasing national border fortification. This film explores Austrian-Hungarian border’s material visibility and invisibility shaped by these discourses. It questions whether we should diverge from the clearly demarcated cartographic line to understand national border constructions. I visited three stretches on the dividing line between the two states. Each had varying degrees of visibility. Sometimes only Google map revealed the presence of a border – at least for those it does not try to keep out. Other times the sovereign state’s power and symbols dotted the landscape.