Masha Pryven returned to Narva with her second collaborative project with local young people. Over a month, young participants engaged in a series of intensive exchanges, leading up to a final participatory action where they engaged passers-by at the EU border in dialogue.
During this period, participants reflected on and discussed the institutional violence ingrained in a passport, which defines an individual and assigns identity. They questioned the government’s role in determining personal identity and talked about what and why certain things are “forbidden”. In an act of defiance, participants were encouraged to create their own passports.
At the NART residency, they created a lab-like environment that produced over 25 unique passports. During this intense period, the participants not only created their own passports but also conceived a participatory action at the Estonian-Russian border. They decided to engage in dialogue with people crossing the border, either entering or leaving Russia, and pose to them the main question: “Would you agree that a human being is an individual who must think, reflect, and challenge injustice?” As a gift, the respondents received a “Passport of a Human.”
This project was realized in cooperation with the Goethe Institute and the Narva Art Residency.
