Shared Migrants (Archive)

Shared Migrants (Archive) is a participatory project which documents migrant interactions with the ‘Irish border’. The archive documents migrant border crossings - sanctioned or undocumented, conducted on the land, sea or away from borderlines, speculative, documentary or fictional, past, present or future, into a physical archive. Sidelining the data collection practised by mechanisms of border control, this project centers migrant knowledge: instead of collecting 'facts' about migrants, this archive documents how the border feels for migrants on the island.

The Shared Migrants (Archive) initially developed over the course of a field trip, taking Bojana Janković and Nessa Finnegan from Cairnryan (in Scotland) to Derry, and Dublin. We were stationed at the CCA 2-5 June, and used this time to develop initial archive concepts, experiment with ways of countermapping, and experience the border between NI and ROI in the location where migrants feel the exclusion daily - as they face a lack of access to services and activities on the other side of the invisible border.

The Shared Migrants (Archive) is supported by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.The project developed from The Uncommon (Travel Area), a performance/installation commissioned by CCA Derry~Londonderry, supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Derry City & Strabane District Council and Garfield Weston Foundation.