Borders aren’t places to linger – they’re passages. Open them here, close them there. In 2008 and 2009, artists Silke Markefka and Nikolai Vogel explored Germany’s border crossings with its nine neighbouring countries. They documented the eerie aftermath as barriers vanished: dismantled structures overgrown with neglect, crumbling into ruins, or standing as surreal relics from a bygone era. The 1985 Schengen Agreement and its 1990 Implementation Convention (Schengen I and II) had, since the mid-1990s, rendered these infrastructures obsolete, reverting many crossings to ordinary roads. Passport checks ended with Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands in 1995; Austria in 1998; Denmark in 2001; Poland and the Czech Republic by late 2007; and Switzerland by late 2008. Controls shifted to outer EU frontiers, enforced more rigorously. Now, as they return even around Germany, this work offers a poignant retrospective on a time when borders nearly faded away.

Painter Silke Markefka captured her impressions in striking medium- and large-scale works – not as literal scenes, but as layered memoryscapes, blending overpainting and revelation to evoke time’s strata. Her intuitive approach invites viewers to forge personal connections. Writer and artist Nikolai Vogel recorded the sonic essence of these sites with analogue devices from the same fading epoch – tape machines, reel-to-reels, dictaphones, and cassette recorders – while crafting associative texts that deepen the immersion.

The sensation of gliding past a barrier gate… Paintings and soundtracks from an era when borders seemed to dissolve. An evocative tour through 22 sites, born when Schengen opened pathways without checks – yet now reimposed. To/After/Beyond the Border confronts today’s realities with once-bright visions of a freer world, probing history itself.

Encompassing painting, photography, literature, field recordings, and performance, the project earned the 2008 Munich City Visual Arts Project Grant. It inspired Nikolai Vogel’s 50-minute BR radio play, premiered on Bayern 2 in 2011. Installations have appeared in galleries and museums, including the 2024 Vom Teilen | About Sharing | O Dzieleniu – Kunst an der (polnisch-deutschen) Grenze exhibition at Berlin’s ZAK Centre for Contemporary Art and a major 2025 solo show at Munich’s Muffatwerk. The accompanying reader/artist’s book Nach der Grenze was published by Black Ink Verlag.