edito
Laws structure many aspects of our lives, but we don’t know this very well.
Illegal. According to the dictionary that means “contrary to the law”. But what does that mean, contrary to the law? Does it mean unlawful, what is outside the law, what the law prohibits or requires, or does it include opposing the law? Does it mean what is wrongful, without law? But whose law – and what law? Who defines the rules and how are they made? What do they cover? Objects, actions, ways of thinking, heaven and earth, plants and animals, people? And what are the social, cultural, economic, political and ecological models on which our laws are based?
The theme of this biennial – illegal – broaches an extremely interesting subject. Hundreds of partners, artists and residents set to work on it with a lot of sensitivity and enthusiasm. The Zinnodes were driven by a sense of urgency and necessity to address pressing contemporary social issues. That is certainly the case for those who tackled another definition of “illegal”, one that is considered to be almost self-evident these days, that is: “a person who is present in a country without valid documents”. In this case, illegal is not an action or a way of thinking, but a person who is denied access to rights, to a history, to relations of solidarity, to an existence, almost. These Zinnodes zoomed in on questions about the (in)justice of our laws, about the