Ksenia: A graduate from Moscow Architectural institute, interested in the city and urbanism. Moscow and Copenhagen was the last border she crossed. She recently crossed many borders when she moved from the suburb to the center. Now she experiences a completely different city, a different life and a different lifestyle. Is there a cultural border within the city?
Darya: A landscape architect from Nizhny Novgorod, living in Moscow. The last border she crossed was on her way back from Sweden. This was not just a material and political border, but a mental border. Sweden and Russia are like two different worlds, in which people lead different live. This border is also strong when you move between cities and regions in Russia.
Jane: A student of public administration, regional development and urban development. The last border she crossed is one she crosses everyday on her commute: between Moscow and the greater Moscow region.
Grisha : Works at the Moscow Urban Forum and interested in urban development. The last border he crossed was between Moscow and St. Petersburg, but another border he is continually crossing is a language barrier because of his limited English.
Artem: Works in marketing, communications and arts management. He is interested in patterns of habitation in Moscow, and also studies abandoned villages / settlements in Russia – the people who move there and how they lead new lives. The last border he crossed was between rural and urban. He also takes night time jogs to avoid air pollution, and when he runs through yards he encounters and overcomes many different types of borders and obstacles.
Shriya: Works as an urban researcher and artist with Partizaning in Moscow. She last crossed the Czech – Russian national border, and each morning crosses a border demarcating Indian territory on Russian soil. The last invisible border she crossed was using skype to cross telecommunication borders.
Nitin: Professor at the New School who regularly encounters a language border while working in Latin America. He also notices the border of the weight of history. There is a border of what people speak about and memorialize which is something he is able to cross, but encounters often.
Christo: The last border he crossed was from the upper east side into park slope into brooklyn- crossing a life border or life transition borders or re-enforcing a cultural / spatial borders in the city. He lived in the first gated community in Africa which later became a model for the rest of the world. He is interested in the urban borders within the city.
Dhanya: A filmmaker from Mumbai, India who runs a public art project called the Wall Project. The last border she crossed was the Garden ring when she moved to the center of the city. She had been used to a very specific commute and using the metro or the bus. But with the move, noticed her own “self imposed borders” which create new borders as she moves through the city.
Polina: A dancer and journalist who was part of the bodies in urban space performance in Russia. She is currently working on an article about migrants in Moscow, and is going to create performance based interventions to overcome borders.
Rebecca: A current student at the University of Berkley, Rebecca is an urban researcher who maps the trajectories of animals in urban space to understand how the built environment affects behavior.
Olena: An architect from Kiev who has studied the impact of defense systems to create physical borders in urban space.