The Feminist Mail Art Project Women/Beyond Borders has been withoutboundaries since 1993. It combined the virtual and material reality of theArts as an artistic situation. In 1993, in Santa Barbara, California, agroup of artists centred around Lorraine Serena and Elena Siff, developedthe idea of a world-wide feminist art project: WOMEN /Beyond Borders(W/BB). In this project, various artists were asked to present their acreative interpretation of objects in a defined format - the box,using themedium of the exhibition as a tool for establishing a feminist discourse.Small pinewood boxes (9x 6 x 5,5 cm) were sent to female curators in 15countries; these in turn each asked 12 artists to fill a box. Parallel tothis an electronic network was established between the participants. Underthe direction of Sky Bergman, a W/BB Homepage was created in the world wideweb into which all works were scanned. The run of the exhibition, pressreactions etc. were continually documented into the left-hand of theindividual artists' homepage.

In November of 1995, the Creative Arts Forum in Santa Barbara, exhibited178 Boxes from Argentina, Australia, Finland, France, Israel, Italy, Japan,Kenya, Mexico, Austria, Spain, Sweden, the US and Vietnam. Some wereamusing and ironic statements from the everyday life of women. Some werereal treasures, filled with wishes, longings and dreams. Some depicted realexperiences such as the death of one artist's mother, or the case ofanother contributor who depicted her escape as a boatperson from Vietnam.All together, this exhibition was an impressive anthology of variouslife-stories, powerful statements about life and the work situation fromwomen around the world.
In general, it was possible to tell the artist's country of orign from thecontents of their box. From Mexico came the splendor of silver, velvet andsilk, then there was the clear definition of the Japanese box, themysterious Voodoo magic surrounding the box from Cuba and the minimalistreduction of Austria.
In 1995, the Antique Museum in Basel Switzerland, initiated a second W/BB:as a contemporary supplement to its exhibition "Pandora - women ofclassical Greece", which also focussed on the medium of "receptacles",inviting female artists from Switzerland, Germany, Greece and the US toparticipate. Meanwhile, the main exhibition travelled to Israsel in 1996. Aphoto shows a bemused Bill Clinton standing before a glass cabinet filledwith boxes at the ICC, Jerusalem's Contemporary Gallery. In August, theexhibition was due in Graz, and St. Petersburg, Russia was next on theagenda.

The artists themselves saw that giving public coverage to the exhibition'sjourney from Graz to St. Petersburg could be a good way of extending theproject, and Doris Jauk-Hinz, Veronika Dreier and Eva Ursprung came up withan original idea. A Russian train wagon, complete with sleeper compartment,was rented and sent from Russia to Graz. The objects were installed in thecarriage, making the wagon into a moveable sculpture in a newly definedopen space stretching from Graz, past Vienna, Budapest and Lvov to St.Petersburg. The installation contained an old-fashioned sleepercompartment-beset with golden drapery and silver cups- three femaleartists, a writer, a photographer, two EDP experts, two Russian sleeperattendants, a laptop with an Internet connection, a videocamera and 178boxes from all around the world. The exhibition crossed 8 borders on the way, beetween Austria, Hungary, the Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Letvia,Estonia and Russia.

This sculpture, which took its form from the transport process itself wasopen to all the passengers on the train. Passersby became guests, tourswere made through the wagon. During the trip the travellers on the trainwere gathered and led through the exhibition. Both the purpose and theitinerary of the trip were publicised and recordered. Apart from the pressconferences, publicity for the exhibition was mainly concentrated on theInternet. The wagon functioned as an 'analogous' gallery and a mobilecut-off point between its journey in real space and its virtualcorrespondence to a "digital gallery".
An on-line event was planned between those on the train and the artistsleft behind in Austria and the USA for the movement of the exhibition'sarrival in St. Petersburg. Before we set out we were repeatedly told itwould be impossible to travel through all these countries with 178 artobjects and arrive in St. Petersburg unscathed. We were also told thatthere were no general customs forms and no consistent laws between thesenew countries, and that we would probably be attacked and robbed byorganized bands of thugs and thieves. Just an hour before we were due todepart, we received a call from the Foreign Office: our contact person inSt. Petersburg would not accept custody of the 178 Boxes, as we would bearriving too soon and it was much too complicatet, suggesting we shouldpostpone the trip for an indefinite amount of time. Then the Austriancultural attaché in Budapest tried to stop us from setting out,saying it was all far too dangerous, even though a few men were goingalong.

The idea of border-crossing exhibition with the sole purpose ofestablishing a world-wide communications network for women artists,overcome separations and find common ground to build upon, free ofnationalism, began to appear more and more absurd the further we gotfrom our "Western civilization". In Hungary, the customs officials let uspass, not without considerable interest, but the project came to acomplete halt on the border of the Ukraine in a whirl of totalmisunderstanding. At this point, not even the width of the traintrackremains the same -huge cranes heaved the wagon two metres up in the air onto a new substructure and wagon base conforming to the Russion norm. Thefurther east our journey took us, the more adventurous it became in anincreasingly foreign world. The values and attitudes changed with thekilometres which went ticking by and our undertaking started to appearmore and more questionable even to us. The concept of "woman", "art", and"nation" here changed at breakneck speed. There was an irate question froma journalist in Lvov; "Why aren't there national flags by the artists'names?" Why hadn't artists from the Ukraine been invited? They make muchprettier boxes. The tone of the customs officials also changed dramatically-in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, there was a heavypounding on the compartment door, the sound of military boots, and harshvoices yelling "Control!", with a hasty "No Camera!" following hot on itsheels.

After checking our passports and a wide-eyed inspection of the boxes theystood there looking totally lost. Our sleeper carriage escorts -themselvesnot entirely clear on our objective and with barely adequate control of theGerman and Russian languages- tried to explain our untertaking. Ourthree-language (German, Hungarian and Russian) brochure was avidly studiedwith great shaking of heads. More officials were called, and, later on,the friends and relatives, wives and children filed through the exhibitionfar into the night. Our letter of recommendation from the AustrianConsulate in Moscow (written in Russian) was also thoroughly examined,drawing a few smiles and timid friendliness. Our initial fear was replacedwith an sort of fatalistic relaxation. We were "somewhere" at last, thesevillages were not even marked on the map and we were surrounded byforeigners as far as the eye could see! Just what exactly were theysupposed to do with us? It was obvious they thought we were somewhat crazybut, nevertheless, harmless. The one stark certainty was that they did notwant to keep us -let alone the Boxes- under any circumstances.
A considerable relief was clear all around when some reason could be foundto help us continue on our journey. This, however, did not occur withoutsome hiccups -the customs document we had allowing us to take the boxesout of Austria dissapeared after one customs check, and the loss wasdiscovered long after our train had gotten under the way. Then, when wearrived in Russia, we were informed our visa was only partially complete,and the part allowing us to leave the country again was missing. It hadprobably been retained when we had left Belarus.

Our arrival in St. Petersburg finally took place after a 64-hour, 40minutes trip, including a twelve-hour delay. In the event, the Internetexchange between Graz and Santa Barbara had taken place without us 12 hoursbefore we arrived, and the invited journalists were long tucked up in theirbeds. The porters wanted to charge 30 dollars for moving the boxes 100metres, and Polina Fedorova, who was supposed to accept the delivery of theboxes in a much publicised event had no idea what to do with them. Therewere no funds available for an exhibition, let alone storage space. So weopted for storing the boxes in the left-luggage office. All the next daywas spent in the Consulate and the Foreign Ministry. We were in the countryillegally, the whole situation was totally impossible, and we weren't evensupposed to be there. After a long period of arguments batted back andforth, we were given a new visa (again in exchange for more dollars), and aresting place was found for the boxes.
When Polina had finished reading our letter of recommendation she turned uswith an amused expression. She explained that in Russian there is no termfor borders, only district control, and that as a result, given thistranslation, WOMEN/ Beyond Borders roughly into "Women out of Control'.


Edition from: sic (March 1997) Vienna, Austria
Places or Stations of Exhibit
1996 Israel, Austria, Russia
1997 Kenya, Italy, Sweden, France
1998 Finland, Cuba, Mexico
1999 Argentina, Japan, Vietnam, Australia
2000 Presentation and Donation for permanent Exhibition in the USA