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Border crossings

For her final project at Saint Martins Marta Monge imagines travel tools an illegal migrant could design to cross EU borders, using design objects as props to render possible futures.

Marta Monge’s final Industrial Design Master project at Central Saint Martins, Border Crossings, explores the phenomenon of illegal migration, focusing on Sub-Saharan and Maghrebi migrants and the perilous journeys they face, chasing the elusive European dream.

The project twists the traditional vision of clandestine immigration provided by media, by creating a fictional, even though realistic, development of the current situation.

Border Crossing exaggerates the public hysteria and fear fuelling anti-immigration feelings, portraying the migrant as a threat lurking outside the gates of Europe. It explores the migrant’s point of view, looking at the journey to Europe and the many ordeals that the status of “clandestinity” entails.

The result is a series of tainted objects, which explore the potentialities of crafty ad-hoc design solutions. Each of them represents a frontier and tries to encapsulate within function, materials and aesthetics, the obstacles to overcome in order to cross a specific border. Behind them there’s not a designer, but an illegal migrant, determined to complete his journey.