"MURS", a visual study of borders
From 26 January to 25 March, the UAB Exhibition Hall (Library and General Newspaper Archives Building, Plaça Cívica) will host the exhibition by Roger Grasas in collaboration with Institut de les Desigualtats.
A documentary photographic project by artist Roger Grasas that reflects, from a critical and contemporary perspective, on the concept of borders in the current geopolitical context.
In a Europe increasingly conceived as a “fortress,” MURS investigates the many forms borders take today. The project understands borders not only as physical elements, but also as a complex reality that can be natural, political, symbolic, or virtual. From deserts and seas turned into deadly boundaries to immigration laws, biopolitical control devices, or internal borders based on racism and exclusion, Roger Grasas unfolds a visual cartography of contemporary separation.
The photographic journey moves through key spaces along global migration routes: the fences of Ceuta, the wall in Palestine, the beaches of Dakar, the “jungle” of Calais, the waters of the central Mediterranean, and the agricultural camps of Huelva. Through these geographies, the project documents the proliferation of new architectures of control and denounces the power structures that, on the one hand, foster forced displacement through economic policies and destabilising interventions, and on the other, criminalise people who are compelled to migrate.
MURS focuses both on stories of resistance, dignity, and survival among migrants and on the often invisible powers that sustain the global border regime. The project challenges the dominant narrative of the so-called “refugee crisis” and proposes understanding it instead as a profound crisis of values, responsibilities, and human rights within societies of the Global North.
With this proposal, the UAB reaffirms its commitment to culture as a space for reflection, critical thinking, and dialogue around the major social challenges of today.
Produced in collaboration with the Institut de les Desigualtats, the project receives the support of the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation and the Barcelona City Council.
Roger Grasas (Barcelona, 1970) holds a degree in Philosophy from the University of Barcelona, a degree in Photography from the UPC, and a postgraduate qualification in Aesthetics and Art Theory from the UAB. His work lies between documentary language and authorial photography and is characterised by an analysis of the present through contemporary landscape and territory.
His practice seeks to understand the tensions between space, history, and power through open-ended questions. With a clear critical stance toward technology and capitalism, Grasas confronts the viewer with what is “strange”, understood as an aesthetic category that disrupts everyday life and forces us to rethink reality.