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4: CASE STUDY 1: THE ITALIAN/SLOVENIAN BORDER
Figure 21: People at the international border crossing in Rožna Dolina on the night between 20th
and 21st of December 2007 celebrating the end of border controls as Slovenia entered Schengen.
The boy holds up an obituary of the border stating: After being a way of life this border, ours and
yours (Italian and Slovenian) has, seized to exist 1947 – 2007. We say goodbye on Thursday, 12.22.
at 00:00. Left mourning are: smugglers, refugees, border guards. Property of Goriški Muzej, Nova
Gorica, Slovenia.
The material
Remains of the former militarised border
I travel along the border of Italy and Slovenia. I drive along it, at times I
walk along it. I cross it, both by car and on foot. I photograph it, I draw it
and sometimes I sit down and just look at it. Nobody takes any notice of me
and I am never stopped in my work by any representatives of any official
body. Generally I do not see any people around the border at all unless
someone is in the process of crossing it themselves. There is a sense of
quietness and calm resting over the border areas; nothing is really going on
here. They are places of very little interest to people. This is an interesting
contrast to the previous high levels of interest in these borderland areas,
especially when they were created after World War II, and the surveillance
they and any people moving near them were subjected to. In the study area
the border passes through both the valley created by the Isonzo/Soča river
and Mount Sabotino/Sabotin that rises to a height of 609 m above sea level
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