What is “Borders”?

Cities are more than just their centers. While the heart of a city often attracts attention, it’s at the edges—where urban life meets the unknown—that we begin to uncover how space truly shapes our experiences. Borders is a project that investigates these man-made buildings and boundaries—motorways, road signs, markings, and grid references—that subtly guide our movements and perceptions. These borders don’t just shape how we navigate a city physically; they also influence our emotional and psychological connection to the environment around us.

• Inspiration and Psychogeography

The project’s initial inspiration came from Local, a book by Alistair Humphreys, which was a Christmas gift from my sister. However, the foundation of Borders lies deeper, rooted in my studio practice of deconstructing and reconstructing spaces. I’m particularly drawn to psychogeography—the study of how geography and urban environments affect our emotions and mental states.

Walking the boundaries of a city reveals a lot about how these divisions influence our daily lives. Whether it’s tracing the edge of a railway track or walking along a busy road, these spaces at the city’s periphery offer a different type of understanding—a chance to explore the overlooked and the forgotten.

• Personal Experience: Walking the Borders

Walking these internal city borders provides a perspective that is rarely visible from behind the wheel of a car or through the window of a tram. Having taken every tram in my home city of Amsterdam, I found that walking its edges offers a distinctly different experience. Cities like Amsterdam, with their complex histories and constantly evolving landscapes, shape how we interact with them in ways we might not even realize.

It’s only by walking these boundaries—where urban zones meet rural outskirts, where industrial areas border residential neighborhoods, or where the wealthier districts blend into poorer ones—that the intricate fabric of the city’s design reveals itself. This kind of exploration exposes the hidden forces that shape our interaction with the city and uncovers how we mentally and emotionally map these spaces.

Studio Work and Artistic Process

This project isn’t just an exploration; it directly informs my studio work. The walks are a process of documentation and reflection. The people I meet, the objects I encounter, and the moments that catch my eye all feed into the art I create. I aim to capture the raw, unfiltered environment around me, shooting photos from chest height to avoid the cropping effect of a traditional camera lens and staying present in the moment.

I focus on the overlooked aspects of urban life—discarded trash, old posters plastered under bridges, or transitional spaces between neighborhoods. While storefronts and commercial windows rarely capture my attention, a forgotten fast-food wrapper or an old street sign might. These small, unnoticed elements become the building blocks for my compositions, deconstructed and reconstructed through my creative process.

• The Mechanics of the Walks

Using an ordinance survey map, I walk the perimeter of a 1 km² grid square each month, tracing the borders of these urban sections as closely as possible. These journeys are often interrupted by urban planning obstacles or natural barriers, turning what might seem like a simple route into a complex exploration of space and design.

These walks are more than just a means of traversing the city—they are a method of inquiry, revealing how our movement through urban spaces is often dictated by invisible lines and borders. Each journey informs my understanding of the city as both a subject and a medium for artistic reflection.

• Reflection on Cities and Urban Space

Cities are constantly shaping us, whether we realize it or not. The visible and invisible borders within a city define our experience of place—how we move, where we go, and even how we feel. By walking these boundaries, I’ve come to see the city as a living organism, with its edges offering a deeper understanding of its overall structure.

The insights gained from these walks go beyond personal reflection; they challenge the way we traditionally think about urban spaces. While the city center is often seen as the heart of urban life, it’s at the edges that we discover how cities truly function, where the planned meets the unplanned, and where order meets chaos.

Conclusion: Redefining Our View of Cities

Borders is an ongoing project, continually evolving with each walk. It challenges us to look beyond the familiar routes and explore the less traveled paths that define a city’s character. By investigating these overlooked spaces, we can begin to understand the hidden forces that shape our cities—and ourselves.

As this project continues, I hope it encourages others to question the way they experience urban spaces and perhaps even inspires them to explore the edges of their own cities. After all, it’s at these borders that the true essence of urban life is revealed.