April 21 - 28, 2017

Vtape, Toronto 

in conjunction with the 30th Anniversary, Images Festival, Toronto

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All is well on the border presents a collection of video works that contend with life on the margins. The program takes its name from the same-titled 1997 Akram Zaatari documentary, which offers for wide viewing the testimonies of three prisoners held in detention centers during the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon. These gathered works align histories, accounts, and experiences surrounding immigration, exile, statelessness, and the precarity of moving across sovereign borders, as well as the fringes of social and cultural boundaries. These liminal zones have come to increasing prominence on the backs of refugee crises stemming from Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria, and activist platforms that have granted greater visibility to those in the periphery. And as the Internet and its digital affects have staked greater claims in the lives of people, globally; and facilitated communication and the bridging of experiences beyond arbitrary boundaries; borders, too, have grown increasingly irrelevant in our highly interconnected and global communities.

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In these times of heightened national security, mass globalization, civic unrest, and the rise of nationalist movements throughout the West, borders are both foregrounded and swept aside; highly policed or easily crossed; and used to reinforce geopolitical agendas and causes. All is well on the border is in many ways a case study of border states across diverse cross-sections of global society, offering a nuanced picture of the myriad lines that divide our world.

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Full essay

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All is well on the border publication