Made In… Donated for…
Expo Milano 2015

Within the framework of the Artist in Residence Programme titled “MADE IN…/ Lateral Line of Space”, conceived specifically for the EXPO 2015 by curator Gerald Straub, Berlinger and Fiel have been looking into specific forms of representation and modes of communication employed by the participating nations, and came up with the idea to foster informal exchange and to make it visible for the general audience. They conceived of a format, which was launched through an initial invitation of the Austrian Pavilion and asked the participating nations to donate a suitable object to one of their neighbours and to display the received gifts for a self-chosen period of time. Based on a closed chain of neighbouring pavilions on the site of the EXPO, Berlinger and Fiel requested the participants to document every step of the self-organised process according to a proposed timeline. In order to indicate the presentation of the gifts, the artists prepared individual “Certificates of Exchange”, bearing the programmatic inscription “Made in… Donated for…”, which was to become the title for this initiative. tat ort managed to initiate a lively dialogue and the exchange of more than 30 gifts in total and to undermine the enclosed presentations of the national pavilions with the temporal display of these alien objects.