Antarctica World Passport Office

The Antarctica World Passport project is a powerful example of Lucy + Jorge Orta's participatory and engaging work, which has evolved from the artists' expedition to the Antarctic (2007). The participatory aspect focuses on the question of what it means to be a world citizen today and invites audiences to become active members of an exponential interconnected virtual community.

Antarctica World Passport is part of a much larger body of work - Antarctica - which addresses issues relating to the environment, politics, autonomy, habitat, mobility and relationships among peoples. For the artists, Antarctica embodies Utopia: a continent whose extreme climate imposes mutual aid and solidarity, freedom of research, of sharing, and collaboration for the good of the planet. The immaculate ice landscape is a filter for the kaleidoscope that make up our nations and identities, concentrating the colours into the sum of light and the purity of a hope. The Antarctica World Passport is a proponent of a 'no-borders' reflexion.

The first Antarctica World Passport Office was presented at Lucy + Jorge Orta's survey exhibition at the Pirelli Hangar Bicocca in Milan (2008). It exists in different sculptural formats and the participatory action is re-activated each time. The passport offices are generally constructed with reclaimed wood and found objects including boats, water recipients, suitcases, toys, that tower and bulge over rudimentary structures synonymous with the shanty town and border crossings that artists have traversed in some of remotest corners of the planet.

The process of application for a passport is a participatory performative experience. The passport office is manned by passport officers trained to mediate with the general public and to distribute the passport edition. The applicant (audience) is requested to agree to a set of passport obligations that are presented by the passport officers and basic data is entered into an application pothole. For each passport registered, a unique identification number (UIN) is automatically generated to authenticate the edition. The UIN is inscribed on each passport and stamped by the officer. The symbolic transferal of one's individual national identity, to that of the collective world citizen, is part of the artwork's performative element and embodies the notion of Operational Aesthetics, by inciting the general public to take action.

The registered passport citizens populate a new interconnected 'no-borders' world map on the official website, a potent visualisation portraying the mass-mobilization across the globe, from Europe to the hardest hit environmental and political catastrophe zones including the Solomon Islands, Philippines, Alaska, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The passport office was commissioned for Frieze Projects from October 4-8, 2017, a record distribution of 5,000 passports took place over the 4-days of Frieze London.

• https://www.studio-orta.com/en/artwork/6...
• https://frieze.com/media/frieze-projects...
• https://frieze.com/fair-programme/lucy-j...