Studio Orta

We are happy to annouce the participation in Frieze Projects London with Antarctica World Passport Delivery Bureau, a brand new ‘convoy’ installation composed of customised ex-army trailers, curated by Raphael Gygax.

For a number of years, Lucy + Jorge Orta have been exploring the transformation of surplus military equipment, ‘weapons of war’, into ‘tools for peace’, to infuse them with new meaning. On the mobile passport office, commissioned specifically for Frieze Projects, we find references to the human body in the form of mini-bivouacs, various expedition objects and a bureau from which the passport officers will distribute the Antarctica World Passport. A limited edition of 5,000 passports will be available during Frieze Week from October 4-8. For each passport distributed, the Antarctica World Passport holder is invited to join the no-borders community, which now counts over 19,000 online citizens.

Following their expedition to the Antarctic in 2007, the Antarctica project was launched in 2008, during their survey exhibition at the Hangar Bicocca Milan, curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi. Alongside the Antarctic Village, the artists lay down the foundations for the Antarctica World Passport community. 50,000 copies of the passport have been printed to date —the Frieze Projects passport will be the fourth edition.

For Lucy + Jorge Orta, Antarctica’s immaculate ice landscape is a metaphor, a filter for the kaleidoscope that make up our nations and identities, concentrating all the colours into the sum of light and the purity of a hope.