Archaeology of a Frontier is a joint project of MIC|C and Liminal Geographies with the support of Osservatorio Migranti Basilicata. The project has as its main objective to expose the traces of those silenced and invisibilized trajectories on the shores of the Mediterranean that official border regimes systematically try to erase.
Concretely, MIC|C’s documentation uncovers an emerging form of urban infrastructure in one part of Southern Italy, which once occupied the center of a vast Land Reform in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Now largely abandoned, the remnants of this internal colonization process appear as scheletons in this vast and ridden landscape. In this seemingly abandoned space, MIC|C is able to document and trace a complex system of urban settlement and social insertion.
Through the detailed exposure of various fragments, including archaeological remains, pictures, documents, video and audio recordings, we describe the anthropogeographic history of this emerging borderland at the time of its formal dissolution. Archaeology of a Frontier thus provides the evidence of a momentary presence, a testament to the impermanency of life as it has existed, like the smouldering ashes of a fire, or the traces of a camp after it has moved on.