A freeport is a storage facility that exists formally outside of the territorial jurisdiction of any country. The Geneva Freeport reportedly contains around 1.2 Million works of art that remain unseen by the general public.
Freeport is an audio visual installation and an ongoing study on cultural value. It looks at spaces, objects, sounds and images that are hidden from public view, notoriously hard to experience, the mythology of which creates value. Are these spaces and the items they hold or hidden objects valuable because of the unimaginable wealth that they represent? Or do they appeal to the more romantic approach – the value created by myth and the unknown – the story. Or both?
Freeport documents public engagement with these themes and how this engagement can be demonstrated physically, visually and sonically. Conceived as a large scale, publicly engaged installation and work in progress, the participant is asked to gather a single object in any medium they choose that represents the value in the hidden, the item that holds the myth, the unseen or the unrepresented. Designed only as a framework, the piece gives the viewers the freedom to comment, to co-create; to be political, to be apolitical, to choose between aesthetic object and abstract idea.