Inner Space Made Visible: Mediterranean Sutures in Neukölln

STATEMENT: The 48 Stunden Neukölln 2026 Festival theme: OUT/SIDE/IN
defines boundaries... as spaces in which meanings are suspended and new
configurations become visible.
Since its conception in 2015, the Mediterranean Sutures project has taken
different forms in different contexts, from stitched paper works to
interventions performed on torn maps or collages with fragments of
Mediterranean maps submerged in the sea and subsequently placed on
the rocky coast to dry. Having known Neukölln and held it dear
for some time, I see the 48 Stunden Neukölln 2026 Festival not only as a
very important new step for the project, but more importantly as a space
where the key issue of borders as they are viewed from places of exile can
be brought to light and discussed by all.

The work consists of fragments of a map of the Mediterranean that has been
submerged in the sea and dried in the sun; the fragments were then
individually placed in correspondence of the birthplaces of some of the current
inhabitants of Neukölln, surrounding or overlapping with a large map of
Neukölln itself. The map thus acts as a mirror bearing witness to individual
existences and home places, each fragment as an imaginal amulet torn from
the original birthplace to become a name with a significance at the same time
intimately personal and shared with the host town.
The fragments of maps and their original languages recall the inhabitants’
scars, sutures, inner and invisible nostalgia, joined as it is to the outer,
visible dimension of the city. The scars are sewn with red jute rope, the
sutures with black thread. The dialogue between the inner, invisible space
within the body, and the outer space housing the visible body binds the
two maps, the fragmented and the whole, with threads of memory,
survival and resistance.