Galleria Nazionale San Marino
December 2019
Drittes Land (third country) is the diplomatic status of the Republic of San Marino with respect to the European Union (December 2019).
With this performance, I reflect on this status as something which is not just imposed from outside onto the Republic, but also, and for me most importantly, as a condition which is self-imposed and constructed. in my opinion, several national debates and ideological positions contribute to marginalization and separation of the Republic from the rest of the world. in the performance, I mentioned the 2013 Referendum, when the Sammarinese population voted against the beginning of a process of rapprochement with the EU, abortion (still illegal in San Marino), the power of the Church and the recurrent financial scandals.
The performance began by using the language of the wide-spread religiosity in the Republic and citing Maurizio Cattelan (a site-specific work he realized in San Marino in 1991 is documented in the same room) by sharing a banana among the visitors.
At the invocation: “Vieni spirito dell’Arte” (Come Spirit of Art), they replied: “Vieni in mezzo a noi” (Come upon us) and ate the banana all together.
After this ceremonial prologue, the performance was divided into four parts: a flow chart on what happens when someone asks me where I come from; two diary entries on a meeting with an officer working at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of San Marino and on my appointment to renew my residence permit at the immigration office of Freiburg (Germany); and lastly, an essay on L’ECADC ovvero l’extracomunicato animale da circo (the non-EU citizen circus animal), which deals with the strikingly similar ‘social’ requirements the two figures face every day to stay part of the company, or to earn the next visum/residence permit. Each text (completely hand-written) was read, crumpled up and thrown into a trash bin, together with the banana peel, my passport and my residence permit, in a sign of liberation and overcoming of this, very emotional, ‘prima bozza’ (first draft).
