Reimagining Future, Excavating Past: NSK’s State in Time and Liminality as a form of Political Resistance

Throughout the European refugee crisis that began in 2012 and peaked in 2015, hundreds of thousands of individuals and families from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere were caught in existential transition, at once fleeing the unbearable conditions of their previous lives and facing the grave prospects of permanent exile from their countries. Experiences of displacement, legal precarities, and pressing economic and health concerns were just some of the circumstances asylum seekers experienced along their trajectories toward safety and bureaucratic legitimacy. Remarkably, at the height of an already chaotic situation, it came to light that several groups, determined to free themselves from such hardships, had accidentally acquired State in Time passports under the false premise that the documents issued as part of an art project conceived by Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) in 1992 would ensure passage and safety within the EU.1