Ancient Roman Pula, a city on Croatia’s Adriatic coast, is currently hosting the Visualia Light Festival, transforming its historic architecture with contemporary light art. This cultural event, featuring artists from across Europe and beyond, unfolds in a region that forms part of the European Union's external frontier, implicitly highlighting the stark contrast between celebrated artistic movement and the realities of restricted human mobility across the continent.
Installations are spread across 16 locations within the historic city. These sites, including the more than 2,000-year-old Roman architecture, serve as backdrops for projections, interactive displays, and contemporary artworks. The festival explores broad themes such as peace, nature, human relationships, and technology, presented in a context where the EU's border policies actively undermine these very ideals for countless individuals seeking safety or opportunity.
Cultural Exchange in a Borderland
Artists from a diverse array of nations are taking part in the festival. Participants hail from Croatia, Germany, Spain, Italy, Finland, France, the United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, and Ukraine. Further international contributions come from Hong Kong/China, with additional participants connected to Thailand, the Netherlands, and the United States. This extensive list underscores the relative ease of movement and cultural exchange afforded to certain nationalities and professional groups within and towards Europe.
This free flow of artists and ideas stands in sharp relief to the daily struggles faced by those attempting to cross the same European borders. The city’s Roman amphitheatre and historic centre provide a visual contrast between ancient structures and modern artistic expression. This juxtaposition also serves as a metaphor for the historical openness of human migration versus the contemporary closure enforced by the EU's border regime.
Themes Amidst Fortress Europe
The artworks at the Visualia Light Festival delve into themes of peace, nature, human relationships, and technology. These are universal concepts, yet their celebration in a city like Pula, situated on the Adriatic coast, cannot be separated from the broader political landscape. Croatia, as an EU member, is integral to the architecture of Fortress Europe, a system that prioritises border enforcement over human rights.
The festival's focus on human relationships, for instance, occurs in a continent where solidarity with migrants is criminalised and families are torn apart by deportation policies. The exploration of technology, too, takes place as the EU invests heavily in surveillance and biometric systems designed to deter and track those seeking asylum. These are the technologies of exclusion, not connection.
The Selective Nature of European Movement
The participation of artists from countries such as Ukraine, whose citizens have received immediate temporary protection within the EU, highlights a structural double standard. This contrasts sharply with the treatment of asylum seekers from other regions, who face pushbacks, detention, and deadly journeys across the Mediterranean. The festival's celebration of international collaboration, involving artists from Hong Kong/China, Thailand, and the US, further illustrates this selective approach to global mobility.
The Visualia Light Festival, through its very existence and the identities of its participants, inadvertently illuminates the contradictions at the heart of the European project. It showcases a Europe that welcomes certain forms of movement and cultural exchange, while simultaneously building walls and deploying deterrents against others. The ancient stones of Pula bear witness to a history of human movement, now overshadowed by a modern border regime that criminalises the very act of seeking a better life.