heath-bunting

Heath Bunting, born in 1966, is a contemporary British artist based in Bristol. In his work he explores the concept of borders in a physical and digital environment. Is some of the work he does actually legal? If so, is it moral to do what he does, and can we call it art?

One of these projects is “Border Xing” that started in 2001. It was an eight year project during which Bunting attempted to cross some European borders. This is an interesting and controversial venture, as it raises concerns with security matters and how they can affect the general public.

From a Heath Bunting interview with the Tate, 13 September 2011. “I just wanted to practically examine every border, to see if the security and the difficulty in crossing those borders, with or without paperwork, publish that information….just quite a rigorous survey which unexisted at the time.” On the one hand you could argue that Bunting is doing some important work to highlight the problems that can occur with levels of illegal migration from country to country. He is exploring the concept of borders - should they exist at all? And perhaps in an ideal world there would be no borders, but as the situation in the world at the moment stands; with high populations and terrorism, countries without borders have no place. Bunting goes on to say “...also to develop techniques for crossing borders without being imprisoned or intimidated or criminalised in some way.” Now here we can see that he wanted to see whether a system exists to ease border crossing. Morally, these actions are not right and are not in the interests of citizens.

But listening on to the interview: “...so you could travel from one country to the other without seeing any kind of agent of the state. But for instance as soon as you arrived in a capital city, you’d often be checked….” Here Bunting seems to outline the root of one of the most significant issues of our time, and perhaps the government should make use of his findings and tighten up border control.

As we saw in the recent case of the disappearance and suspected murder of Alice Gross, the prime suspect was Latvian immigrant Arnis Zalkalns. He had served a seven year prison sentence for the murder of his wife prior to coming to England. Det. Supt Carl Mehta, from Scotland Yard's Homicide and Major Crime Command commented to the BBC: “I think given what we are finding out about his antecedents and his history, clearly he potentially poses a risk to the public.” What should be questioned here is how was Zalkalns let into this country without the Home Office knowing of his previous conviction. According to the Home office “Any check against a UK database for crimes will only show up crimes committed by individuals after they have entered the UK and will not be any indicator whatsoever of crimes committed in the applicant’s home country prior to entry into the UK.” This seems to be very loose border control, as pretty much anyone can enter the United Kingdom in this case.

The Tate website states that Heath Bunting’s finding are “not available to everyone who has an Internet connection.” Nevertheless they are available on Bunting’s website now. Putting this kind of information in the public domain, endangers people as citizens of a country that may have an immigration problem, as it is making it even easier to cross borders. With these actions, Bunting isn’t taking into account the consequences of his actions concerning other people. Yet the “Border Xing” project is over ten years old, so probably most of Bunting’s findings have now expired as border control may have changed.

Heath Bunting’s work can be called art in the sense that the concept and idea highlight a problem in our modern day society. Just as British artist’s Mark Wallinger’s 2006-7 installation “State Britain” in which Wallinger recreated the tents and banners at Parliament Square. However Wallinger’s art is counted as more politically aware, and more commercially viable, as he was “working with the politics of spectacle”. The public perceives this as modern art, as it can be marketed and spoon-fed to the audience and the artist gets paid. This is precisely what Bunting is going against: “media and commerce exploit the images and stories of politics purely for their sensational and marketable qualities…” (Marc Garrett 2013) Heath Bunting’s work has a “world changing potential”, but still focuses on problems that concern people, and in the end that is the point of modern art. However this art should not cause a threat to society.

It is a shame that Bunting’s concepts and ideas are very interesting, but he choses such immoral ways to explore them. In many aspects he is not thinking about his actions now, and we do not know what these explorations may result in. Maybe there will be, or already are people out there who will take advantage of this work to illegally get into countries. There are a lot of grey areas concerning the legality of Heath Bunting’s work. For instance, the law does not state anywhere that what Bunting was doing was not permitted. The Border Xing project may not be illegal in a straight sense, but it is definitely not moral, as he is not taking into account the problems he may be causing to other people in the future.

Bibliography

Academia.edu, 2013. Disrupting The Graze.[online] Available at:
[Accessed 17 October 2014].

BBC News London, 2014. Alice Gross disappearance: Suspect murdered wife in Latvia. [online] Available at:
[Accessed 17 October 2014].

Crossing EU Borders, 2011. Risks of entering an EU Country illegally. [online] Available at:
[Accessed 10 October 2014].

EU Immigration Portal, 2012. The Schengen Area. [online] Available at: [Accessed 10 October 2014].

European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2014. Criminalisation of migrants in an irregular situation and of persons engaging with them. [online] Available at: [Accessed 17 October 2014].

European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2014. Handbook on European law relating to asylum, borders and immigration. [online] Available at: [Accessed 17 October 2014].

Furtherfield Marc Garrett, 2012. Heath Bunting, The Status Project & The Netopticon. [online] Available at: [Accessed 1 October 2014].

Heath Bunting. BorderXing. [online] Available at: [Accessed 1 October 2014].
Tate Intermedia Art, 2002-2003. BorderXing Guide. [online] Available at: [Accessed 1 October 2014].

Tate, 2007. Mark Wallinger: State Britain. [online] Available at: [Accessed 17 October 2014].

Tate, 2011. Heath Bunting interview. [online] Available at: [Accessed 1 October 2014].

What do they know, 2013. Checking Criminal records. [online] Available at: [Accessed 17 October 2014].