Calais operates as a border landscape shaped by refugee movement, logistics routes, and temporary occupation.
Case study
How can informal mobility be made visible within a controlled border landscape?
Frame these mobile conditions as a third space through mapping, narrative diagrams, and visual research.
A research-led exhibition project combining spatial analysis, visual sheets, and film.
This project takes the Calais region in France as a case study, utilizing the theoretical frameworks of “borderscape” and “third space” to explore the complex interactions between refugee movements and logistics systems during the European refugee crisis, as well as the dynamic borderscapes these interactions create.
Concept of the Third Space:
The autonomy and mobility politics of migrants often precede and provoke national migration control policies and changes in border landscapes. This mobility represents the fundamental right to freedom of movement and individual agency. Within logistics systems, refugees seek and create informal spaces that transcend national borders and social norms, utilizing temporary spaces that arise during their movements to meet basic survival needs. These temporary spaces are not confined to static public places like train stations, but also include dynamic spaces formed while refugees are on board moving vehicles. These spaces provide a survival strategy for refugees, who exist in a state of both mobility and transience.
The flow of refugees and modern logistics systems forms a complex and dynamic symbiotic relationship. This relationship urges us to rethink the concept of the “third space” in the context of logistics systems; it is no longer a simple geographical construct but rather a complex formation that integrates social, cultural, and political dimensions.
