Studio Orta

Antarctica World Passport Office is a component of the long-term research project 'Antarctica', which explores topics relating to the environment, politics, autonomy, habitat, mobility and relationships among peoples. For Lucy + Jorge Orta, Antarctica represents Utopia: a continent whose extreme climate imposes mutual aid and solidarity. The immaculate ice landscape is a filter for the kaleidoscope that make up our nations and multi-ethnic identities, concentrating the colours, races and creeds into the sum of light, and a vision of Hope.

Passport offices are constructed with reclaimed wood and found objects including boats, water recipients, suitcases, toys, that tower and bulge over rudimentary structures synonymous with the shanty town and border crossings that artists have traversed in some of remotest corners of the planet. From the passport office are delivered editions of the Antarctica World Passport. The first passport office was presented at the Pirelli Hangar Bicocca in Milan, Italy for the artists’ survey exhibition in 2008. Since, iterations have been created for museums exhibitions and United Nation forums on climate change and migration. This passport office was created in-situ for the Migration Week Marrakech (December 5-11, 2018). For this major global policy-making forum, which brought together representatives from UN member states, international organisations and civil society organisations, Lucy + Jorge Orta created the fifth passport edition to distribute to Delegates and invited guests taking part in the two official events: the 11th Global Forum on Migration and Development Summit (GFMD) and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Conference to Adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM).
The work was commissioned by the curaturial research project Displacement, to amplify the Platform on Disaster Displacement messages, to build greater support for improved protection and assistance for the millions of people displaced around the world each year due to the impacts of disasters and climate change.

For further details about the passport editions and registration process click here.