AA alumnus Calvin Po publishes essay in e-Flux Architecture based on his Diploma research

AA alumnus Calvin Po (AADipl 2020) has published an essay, 'Inscribing Borders on Bodies', in e-Flux Architecture, as part of the Exhausted project, a collaboration between e-Flux Architecture and SALT, and edited by Nick Axel, Cooking Sections, and Nikolaus Hirsch. Based on research Calvin undertook while studying at the AA, his piece explores the tension between bodies, soil, territory, and state in Northern Ireland, and how the Irish border(s) in fact manifest in marginalised bodies.

'The heraldic symbol of the Red Hand is believed to embody Ulster’s founding legend, in which the first to touch the land in a boat race claims its sovereignty. Exploiting a loophole, one man bloodily severs his own hand and throws it onto the land, thus claiming the territory. This myth contains an echo of the history of Ulster and Ireland’s colonization in what is called the Plantations: from the sixteenth century onward, fertile land was confiscated from the Irish and redistributed to English and Scottish settlers loyal to the British crown(s) who occupied the land through farming, known as “planters.” In Northern Ireland’s popular imaginary, the claim of land, notions of sovereignty, territory, and border are all bound to the body, its occupation, and labours on the soil.

While the Irish border has resurfaced as complication of Brexit, the border question of Northern Ireland has deeper roots in the long-standing tension between bodies, soil, territory, and state. With the body’s power to redraw the border, and the border’s power to subject bodies under the state’s biopolitics, the Irish border condition is inscribed by and onto the human body.'