Installation view – Constructions of Resemblance, VC7, Zurich, CH, 2024
Photos: Sebastian Schaub

Transboundary Waters

exhibited in
Distances We Carry, Inside Artphilein (La Piscina), Paradiso-Lugano, CH, 2025
Constructions of Resemblance, VC7, Zurich, CH, 2024

Three buoys, once floating along the Limmat (CH), Aare (CH), and Rhine (DE), now hang upside down, reconnected by steel chains. Each bears the marks of its passage through water and time: traces of rust, faded paint, and dents that testify to currents and collisions.

Transboundary Waters reflects on the symbolic and geopolitical impact of water on national borders – and, ultimately, on belonging. The term transboundary refers to rivers, lakes, and aquifers that cross regions and nations—shared ecosystems that reveal the fragile balance between natural flow and political division.

By inverting the buoys and attaching gazing balls, the work transforms functional maritime markers into quiet witnesses of movement, stillness, and migration. Suspended in space, they form a fragile constellation of tension and reflection, evoking both the visible and invisible lines that bind territories, histories, and people.

The reflective spheres return the viewer’s gaze, turning the work into an act of contemplation: when we see ourselves, do we also perceive the forces that shape us—the borders we inherit, the currents we navigate, and the common waters that sustain us?

Transboundary Waters, 2024
Buoys, steel chains, gazing balls
252 × 204 × 217cm (dimensions vary with installation)
Unique Piece

Detail Transboundary Waters – Constructions of Resemblance, VC7, Zurich, CH, 2024

Detail Transboundary Waters – Constructions of Resemblance, VC7, Zurich, CH, 2024

Installation view – Constructions of Resemblance, VC7, Zurich, CH, 2024

Installation view – Distances We Carry, Artphilein Foundation, Lugano, CH, 2025
Photo: Vittoria Fragapane