photo: Roman Gaigg
Strike [at] the Border!
An exhibition by Rami Msallam
Curated by Bassma El Adisey Kunstraum Aarau
April 12 – May 11, 2025,
Saturday & Sunday 14:00 – 17:00
Vernissage : Friday, April 11, 2025
Kunstraum EG : The Gold Refinery as Border Technology (2025)
Kunstraum 2. OG : Voids in Earth (2024)
Strike [at] the Border! explores the entanglement of borders, material extraction, and labor exploitation within the Swiss gold trade through two spatial investigations.
Using visual strategies and forensic methods, Rami Msallam’s (*1999) work aims to disrupt the postcolonial amnesia in Switzerland and beyond. Strike [at] the Border! points to the urgency of reparative justice and enables a situated interrogation of the topic.
Installation view ‘The Gold Refinery as Border Technology’ (2025) photo: Roman Gaigg
Installation view ‘The Gold Refinery as Border Technology’ (2025) photo: Roman Gaigg
The Gold Refinery as Border Technology (2025) on the ground floor uses the 1993 strike by workers at the Valcambi Gold Refinery in Balerna as an opportunity to highlight the connections between border regimes and labor exploitation. The two-part multimedia installation addresses the border region of Ticino as a place where structural violence against (mostly racialized) guest, seasonal, and border workers, as well as the Swiss gold trade, systematically intersect due to geographic, historical, and political circumstances. A shelf with red binders, featuring a deliberately placed gap, draws a connection to Switzerland’s circumvention of sanctions against apartheid-era South Africa. Further back in the room, an excerpt from the artist’s ongoing research links the issue of border violence as an instrument of power that is not only applied in Ticino but also throughout Swiss economic and social policies.
Installation view Rami Msallam - Voids in Earth (2024) photo: Roman Gaigg
Upstairs, a three-channel video installation expands on these themes: Who takes responsibility when miners from Bisha in Eritrea sue a Canadian company for laundering gold obtained under inhumane conditions in Swiss refineries? Who benefits from the exploitation of nature and people, as well as the perpetuation of colonial structures in former Italian East Africa? Voids in Earth (2024) provides no answers – instead, the work weaves a dense web of historical and documentary connections. In doing so, itmakes visible a network of mechanisms of oppression, with Swiss neutrality once again playing a significant role at its center.
Artist and curator would like to sincerely thank the F+F School for Art and Design for their support with the technical equipment loan. We also thank the team at Kunstraum Aarau, the dedicated advisors who contributed to the development and implementation of the concept, and the guests of the opening talk: Charles Heller, Lucia Bernini, and Rohit Jain. A special thanks goes to Lewis Beauchamp and Zola K.
Kunstraum Aarau thanks the Aargauer Kuratorium and the City of Aarau for their long-standing support. Additionally, the board thanks Wenzel Haller for his commitment and openness in collaboration. The exhibition Strike [at] the Border! is realized in cooperation with the exhibition Model Neutrality (1.2.–11.5.2025) at the Aargauer Kunsthaus in Aarau.
