Giving Harbor (Part 3 of 3)

This is the 3rd and final part of the report back on Giving Harbor.
PART 1
PART 2

CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO GET FULL VIEW AND LARGER SIZE.

The first installment of Giving Harbor was mounted on wooden moorings in Copenhagen’s harbor. The message was generated in collaboration with the users of Trampolinhuset and contributors to visAvis magazine “that focuses on migration and asylum, produced by people with or without citizenship living in Denmark.”

The phrase that you see in this image — “IN IRAN I WAS A PSYCHIATRIST. MY EXISTENCE STOPPED WHEN I ARRIVED IN SANDHOLM.” — needs a bit of explaining for those not in Denmark. “SANDHOLM” refers to the Sandholm Asylum Center in northern Zealand, the island where Copenhagen is located. This is where all asylum seekers first go to when arriving in Denmark. Many people at Trampolinhuset, both in the workshops, in public discussions held previously, and in personal discussions with me, expressed a very similar sentiment to what is stated in the phrase. They felt relief to have escaped the traumas that had driven them out of their homelands, and very happy to find refuge in Denmark. That happiness quickly turned to despair for a number of reasons. Many people felt their identities were being erased. There lives as productive citizens were severed twice, both by displacement, and then again by the inhuman system that is set up in Denmark to process asylum seekers. They are not allowed to work, must live in camps far from cities and people like themselves, must wait for indefinite periods of time for decisions, and in general are isolated from the everyday life of Denmark and having interactions with Danish people. It is a brutal situation at best.

It is important to celebrate good things, even if they are small steps against difficult situations. Trampolinhuset is a regular celebration for many who use it. We had a party for the sign on the day it was finally installed. Our party was across the water on Islands Brygge where we could see the sign.

Two images above: guests at the opening party for Giving Harbor (photographs: Kristofer Hultenberg)

Here is an account of the opening party for the project, written by Sami Saabet, a friend of Trampolinhuset, and contributor to visAvis magazine: Giving Harbor – a day with friends on the quay.

View of the sign from behind just before we dismantled it.

The first day we scheduled for dismantling the sign was a rainy one. It was too wet and dangerous for us to take the sign apart. The moorings become extremely slippery and we were concerned with either falling in or dropping the signs in the water. We opted to wait until nicer weather and as a result ended up with a perfect day for doing the work. We were asked by the maintenance folks at the Marriott to repair the moorings after we took our screws out of the wood. We used a common all-purpose sealer to fill the holes. The sign came down in a couple of hours and we transported it in large pieces, to the place where it would be stored, for further dismantling.

View of the sign from the side

The sign in its current iteration is inflexible and not easy to change. This was due in part to the need to figure out how the sign would work as well as coping with the unevenness of the moorings and the difficulty of installing the letters. When it reappears, the sign will be redesigned to facilitate very easy set up and reconfiguration so a lot more signs can be made and many more people can have access to using this sign system.

The sign dismantled back into smaller sections for transport to storage

Project Thank-yous:
I want to personally acknowledge and thank Tone Nielsen, Morten Goll, Søren Rafn, Liv Duvå, Rasmus Pedersen, Sami Saabet, Faruz, Mohammed, Carlos, Stan, and many of the great folks who come to and use Trampolinhuset and discussed this project with me. Thanks to Jonas Georg Christensen, and especially to Peter Olsen for his terrific production work and mad skills. Big thanks to publik and Kristofer Hultenberg for production of the vinyl letters and taking photographs of the installed sign. I also owe thanks to the fine folks at visAvis magazine who have been very supportive of this project. It would not have been possible without their support.