Rhea Dehn Tutosaus, M.A.

Rhea Maria Dehn, M.A.,

is a doctoral candidate of art history (since 2020) and research associate (since 2020) at the Section of Fashion & Aesthetics at Technical University of Darmstadt. Under the working title “Auf der ‚anderen’ Seite: El Estrecho de Gibraltar. Grenzgeografien, Migration und Identitätspolitik in der zeitgenössischen Kunst” (on the other side: El Estrecho de Gibraltar; borderscapes, migration and identity policitics in contemporary art), she explores the changing interpretation of border, migration and identity from an art-history perspective. While considering postcolonial and global studies, she focusses on the border region between Southern Spain and North Africa based on contemporary positions.

She studied art history and Romance languages and literature at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and at the Universtitat de Barcelona (Spain). In her Master’s thesis “Umdeutungen des Schleiers. Repräsentationspolitiken bei Lalla Essaydi, Majida Khattari und Yumna Al-Arashi (2019)” (Reinterpreting the Veil. Politics of Representation by Lalla Essaydi, Majida Khattari and Yumna Al-Arashi), she examined the artistic areas of action in a Western influenced ‘discourse about the Orient’. She was student trainee in the curatorial section of the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt am Main (2019), during which time she actively followed the Contemporary Muslim Fashions exhibition and presented a panel about fashion and art during the Contemporary Muslim Fashions Forum.

Since the 1990s, media coverage mainly favouring conservative politics have taken root based on pictures and recordings showing migrants and the inhumane conditions of their travels across the Mediterranean Sea. At the same time, the documentary genre became highly important in art productions unveiling areas marked as problematic by society (Nail 2019: 61). History, equally influenced by exchange and conflict, the particular geographic constellation arising from the Straits of Gibraltar, and last but not least the exemplary European border regime set up with the Schengen agreement (1991) contribute to the complexities of the Spanish-Moroccan borders as a field of research.

The concept of this border will be analysed as a productive space to ask how artists adopt, explore, interpret and view this border. Video recordings about the Spanish-Moroccan border are put in focus: The film “Le rêve des brûleurs” (2002) by Leila Kilani, the video essay “Europlex” (2003) by Ursula Biemann, “La Contrebandière” (2006) by Yto Barrada, “Walls” (2006) by Rogelio Lopez Cuencas, “On Translation: Miedo/Jauf” (2007) by Antoni Muntadas, “The Mapping Journey Project” (2008-2011) by Bouchra Khalili, the work “No More Beyond” (2017) by Matthias Kispert and the film “Bab Septa” (2019) by Randa Maroufi. This film should not be reduced to the aesthetics of an artistic medium, but should be understood as a means of social debate, social behaviour and the reinterpretation of political discourse. This convolution results in the question: How does media-based art address, reflect and interpret the combination of geography, globalisation and migration specifically using the Moroccan-Spanish border as an example? Which role does art play both in the production and its reception in the context of conservative politics? Which new approaches and perspectives is art able to provide in response? To which extend can art works offer a platform for alternative imagery production or do they reproduce and set the voyeuristic and social-deterministic dimension of the documentary?

In this project, the changing concept of border and its visualisation are formulated based on the works stated above. In the course of this, the perception of border as a clearly defined line of power, justification and stabiliser of relationships of power, as a third space (Bhabha 2000), as a form of government and as an area of control and surveillance coexist, that is characterised by migrants and their border-crossing movements (Schimanski and Wolfe 2017) The performative character of thinking outside of the box provides the starting point or point of reflection to question established dualities in society. This does not only release the artificial constructs of border but also the figurative representation of migrants from a postmigration perspective of the static characteristics attributed to them and redefines, reunderstands and reflects them through mobility (Drogramaci 2019: 10). Art is often an unfairly ignored but extremely productive platform for addressing and discussing socio-political topics, as becomes particularly evident in documentary media-based art. By combining borders and migration, seen as opposites of stillness and mobility, pictures in motion in an artistic production offer an excellent platform for reflection, insight and expression.

In 2021, the sponsorship award of the Department of Human Sciences for a highly innovative research project goes to Rhea Dehn Tutosaus for her PhD project: "Cross-border Connections at the Estrecho de Gibraltar: Aesthetics of Bodies, Movements and Border Experiences in Contemporary Art”.