Ruth BIANCO – Lines of Migration

Engaging with space

Throughout her practice, Bianco’s focus on the investigation of space has been fundamental. Interested in its agency, how it acts and is acted upon, her attraction to the dynamics of space has led her to embody a choreographic metaphor for itinerancy and transboundary movement. Blurring the boundaries between sea, land and air, Lines of Migration signifies a social space constituted by an assemblage of territories, with a particular focus on the critical condition of the current refugee crisis in the Mediterranean Sea. 

Looking more closely at her collage, one begins to notice particular details such as the series of paper boat drawings, as well as the unidentifiable silhouettes of people. Amongst these are images of the coastal area of the Central Mediterranean route taken by migrants and asylum seekers; they are framed within a boarder made up of dotted lines that trail throughout the work. Additionally, phrases from texts are partially visible, providing clues to the content of the unconventional map laid out before us. The following is more clearly legible:

“Key migrant routes from Africa to Europe”

“Malta, Africa, Europe”

“Legal”

“Malta’s actions vis-a-vis irregular migration”

“Countries of origin and transit”

“Land to land”

“Started the journey from Libyan shores”

“Human treatment of migrant and asylum-seekers”

“Determination of asylum claims”

“Failed asylum seekers”

“Europe ways”

For Bianco, the above described imagery stands as a powerful pictorial signifier on how we mediate the world and how we create spaces to coexist. It is in this regard that the Maltese artist relates her work to democracy through its underpinning of connectivity.  

Lines of Flight

Bianco’s title Lines of Migration alludes to the “line of flight” or a line of escape (French: ligne de fuite), a concept developed by the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari; it represents the process of deterritorialization, a process of becoming. They define the function of deterritorialization as "the movement by which one leaves a territory", thereby "constituting and extending” the territory itself, also known as a "lines of flight”. (Deleuze, G. Guattari, F. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Athlone Press, 1988).

Concerning the above, Bianco questions: ‘What is the meaning of territory?’.

This interrogation, she indicates, is triggered by her observation that the notion of "territory" has become increasingly elusive. Accordingly, her collage appears to integrate conceptual notions of elusive boundaries with geo-cultural and transitional spaces. Bianco maps before us (migratory) “lines of flight”, delineating the deterritorialization of people moving from one point to another.

Engagement with the European Union

During her ongoing professorship in Fine Art at the University of Malta, Bianco initiated Art in Architecture, an innovative framework introducing pedagogic environments for contemporary transdisciplinary spatial practice merging art and architecture. 

In connection to the above, Bianco also served on government culture boards, most notably as art director, having made a major contribution to the development of the Malta International Contemporary Art Space (MICAS), a new project realised by the Government of Malta infrastructural legacy project for the Culture and the Arts sector. Scheduled to open in 2024, this project is partly financed by the European Union under the European Regional Development Fund – European Structural and Investment Funds 2014-2020. 

This forms part of Malta’s National Strategy for the promotion of cross-cultural understanding, by raising public awareness to the significance of the arts in contemporary life by bringing to the forefront the way art and artists help mediate and interpret the world we live in.

Ms. Ruth Bianco meeting with Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, and FR Marcellino Micallef, founder of the Soup Kitchen who won the 2023 European Citizen Award.

Ruth Bianco presents her artwork Lines of Migration at the European Parliament for the exhibition Art in Democracy (23 October - 30 June 2024). The exhibition displays the critical and personal visions of the featured artists who, through their artistic production, have taken a clear position in favour of defending democracy. They contribute to reinforcing awareness of the need to stand up for democratic freedoms, pointing towards the duty to remain alert and participatory in processes as decisive as the European elections. In this connection, they remind us that European citizens have a crucial role to play in defending democracy by voting in the upcoming European elections in June 2024.

More information

• Ruth BIANCO website