The town where the authors of this joint project live is divided into two parts and has two names, Valga and Valka. In between: the Estonian – Latvian border.
Latvian Uldis Balga from Valka and Nils Rebane, former border guard in Valga both found that the border is unnecessary and disturbing, to the point of getting Utopian thoughts, as described in one song by John Lennon: “Imagine there’s no borders...”
What they did to bring their divided territory in focus could be a performance or a ritual: Balga walking along the border on “his”, the Latvian side and ten meters next to him Rebane, on Estonian ground. They protocol the same border posts and behind is the foreign land, land from which they are separated. Through picturing the other’s territory while one’s own is being pictured, in a way they regain power over it and seem to overcome the separation.
Sometimes they meet in each other’s viewfinders – but it remains two views from a distance, enlarged at home using one’s own negative frame that creates two different borders on the images [straight black on Rebane’s prints and smooth on Balga’s ]. When displayed, the edges of these images touch, two focuses in one, 180 degrees different – the border is larger than ever.
Uldis Balga and Nils Rebane
