2024
Basel, Switzerland
Performative action / Printed Edition

As some EU countries tightened border controls, Igor Ponosov grew anxious about crossing into places where he could live and work freely. By December 2024, he was living close to Basel, where borders felt more palpable. There, three countries blend into what seems like a single space.

This sparked an idea: to trace Basel’s borders by bicycle, crossing freely between Switzerland, Germany, and France. He rode for hours, clearing his head and confronting the internal fears bred by bureaucratic struggles.

From each country, he mailed postcards to the art residency in Münchenstein where he stayed. The journey’s GPS track became a drawing—documenting both the act of border-crossing and the artists emotional state, a map of external and internal boundaries that shouldn’t exist in the first place.

In 2025, following the action, was published an exclusive edition (poster) in collaboration with Colab Gallery in Weil am Rhein—a city that was one of the stops on our bike journey. The printed edition available to purchase here: colab-gallery.shop/Follow-by-border/colab11927

A series of postcards (10 × 15 cm, digital print) with handmade stamps, incorporating original postal stamps and a bicycle.

A poster in 84 x 59 cm.
Screenprint on 300g offwhite paper, edition of 25.

In 2025 was presented at gallery shop corner in frame of the Typography Collective group show. COLAB gallery, Weil am Rhein, Germany.