‍Arrival

She is an artist who is seeking a position in this world, where freedom is entangled with power. 

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She arrived in a new land, the low-lying country, the Netherlands.

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She looks up, the land she was born and raised in - Taiwan, is on the list of states with limited recognition.¹ When she was applying master's degree, some university’s websites displayed Taiwan as “Taiwan (Province of China)”. These are all because of historical reasons, the Chinese government claims Taiwan as we are a part of them - which makes most Taiwanese overseas have an identity crisis and even though there are different ideologies in Taiwan about whether we are independent, be a part of China or remain in this awkward situation we currently have - people worldwide know this country, but the country is having a trouble in diplomatic relations. 

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What is my land?

She arrived in a new land, people claim her, people see her differently, they put labels on her, she was not whom she thought, she was not who she was anymore, based on the labels given, she started to doubt who she is.

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Who am I? what is my country and what is a country? How do I identify my nationality in this vague ideology of whether Taiwan is an independent country? Who has the power and the place to do diplomatic recognition? Can we - people from all over the world who didn’t have a sense of belonging in their motherland, people who didn’t find value in their motherland, people who simply want to escape the chaos and war - build a safe land for us?

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She arrived in a new land, people have all the imagination about her, people have a fetish about her, people have prejudice toward her and her fellas, and most of them are negative.

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Your language sounds like ching chang chong²

Get out of our land, go back to your country, virus!
Why are you here, virus?

If you can’t find a job, it doesn’t matter, go to any Thai or Chinese massage place then you can give people a happy ending.³

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She came to a new land, her old problem is not a problem anymore, those old problems stayed in the homeland: Toxic working environment and toxic bosses, long hours working with low salary, discrimination towards women… Coming to a new land brings more different and difficult problems, her friends and family do not fully understand the challenge, and this journey to move to another country by spending a lot of energy preparing documents, spending thousands of dollars, leave a place you are very familiar and comfortable with, for her family, is just a quixotic adventure. Her land where she knows is nowhere to be found in her mind.

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What if we have a land without prejudice and racial hate based on skin color, names, age, sex further, health condition? Can we treat everyone as equal as they deserve? like Johny Pitts wrote in Afropean:

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“Racism and prejudice are cages – a prison sentence alienating those who hold these attitudes from the beautiful diversity of the world – and I pity people with those afflictions.” ⁴

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Can we create a safe space that helps us get out of those cages? Can we truly treat people who they are, without any bias of their skin color, or different origin and overcome the language barrier? 

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Nick Middleton , well explained the ‘New World Order’ in his book “An Atlas of countries that don't exist”:

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“But at the same time, we are constantly being reminded that we live in an era of unprecedented global communication, a time when globalization is eroding the importance of the nation-state. Our planet is becoming an increasingly borderless place, where national boundaries matter little to the movement of goods and investment (though the movement of migrants is another story). National governments have had their power diluted and usurped by some new actors on the global stage, including international organizations, transnational corporations and non-governmental organizations, or NGOs. A world of fixed spaces is giving way to a world of flows, and the idea of national territory is giving way to supra-national communities such as the European Union. With its echoes of Aldous Huxley, this is the ‘New World Order’. …However, while the notion of fixed territories is in one sense under threat from globalization, the rise of the internet, virtual communities and the diffusion of ideas, there is no question that the national space itself remains of great importance. Individual countries still dominate all of our lives. Much as some might like to think of themselves as ‘Citizens of the World’ rather than citizens of any one nation state, they won’t get very far in seeing that world without a travel document issued by their national government. Granted, the European Union has, to a large extent, done away with its internal boundaries, but the EU is still a relatively small chunk of the world. An EU citizen who ventures outside the EU can only do so legally with a passport.”⁵

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“This is why my nation is not recognized,” She thoughts,” It’s the international political game, and if your country is not wealthy, powerful enough, you lose this game.” It is a part of the reason why she saw “Taiwan (province of China)” displays on the websites, Chinese government has more power economically which makes it much more impactful. She feels frustrated, a part of her identity - nationality - is just like a ghost land for some countries.

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She arrived in the new land, and she met some people from her land, also from non-EU countries, some of them came to the new land mainly to obtain citizenship. Starting from the student visa, after that, a work permit, most of their ultimate goal is a permanent residence permit, European citizenship, and a passport. She questions: If the passport is our identity, in this case, how does the passport define us?

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How do people with the most powerful passports see themselves? Is their life better than mine? Will my life get better when I get the most powerful passports?

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Who decided the power of the passport? Is the person who has the authority to give you a VISA fair?

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^1.Taiwan is not recognized as a country by many United Nations members.

^2.This is a pejorative towards Chinese language and East Asians.

^3.Happy ending in a massage means orgasm which can be given using hand or oral form or even penetrative sex.

^4.Johny Pitts, Afropean: Notes from Black Europe, (2019) Page 91

^5.Nick Middleton, An Atlas of countries that don't exist, (2015) Page 14

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Enclave

The sky was grey, blending with those dark mountains. A creek was sitting in between mountains, next to the creek she saw all irises shining with these gentle purple lights, growing on white stones. Irises lighted the dark mountain area. She can’t hear the Burbling of the creek, she can’t hear the sound of the wind, but she can see the water go through the rocks, never coming back. She can see Irises moving along with the mild wind, they are moving left to right, she feels calm just watching them dancing. “If there is an afterlife - which I don’t think exists - it might look like this,” She thought, “Perhaps the afterlife is an enclave. An unknown distinct territory within the foreign land.”

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She was walking on a bridge, her grandfather was in front of her, next to the bridge had plenty of irises. A beautiful golden python showed up, she looked around, her grandfather was gone.

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“Where will I go after I die? Does God exist? What’s the meaning of life? Will I still be myself after the death?” She asked the python, and they looked at each other for a while, “Some questions simply do not deserve an answer.” the python answered, then slithering in between those irises, never coming back. 

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She opened her eyes and woke up with the sunshine on her face. It was a beautiful dream that she had never forgotten for years. 

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Her land - “N/A”

You can’t cross the border.

Your country doesn’t exist.

Every country is a fictional country.

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How much this artificial system alongside the documents and technology is dividing people, using the name of ‘protecting my country’ to discriminate. The system started to create the value differences between each document: the more powerful your passport is, the more freedom you have, and you can visit every country without a visa for 90 days. contrastingly, the more restrictions the passport has given, the more the value of the document will decrease.

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She has more doubts and questions about the political situation of Taiwan after she found out people can easily build their Micronations. Countries are fundamentally artificial conceptual products, just like Micronations. A group of people who share the same values claim a territory, have their language, currency, a government, a capacity to enter into relations with other states, and lastly, build relations with other countries, in this case, the country will not be on the list of states with limited recognition recognised by at least one UN member state. This recognition process creates a hierarchical system, a nation’s legitimacy is depending on how other countries recognise each other, how powerful your country is, and how wealthy your country is to impact others. It is not depending on the will and the identity of the people in the nation. She believes her motherland should be recognized, and their identity shouldn’t be manipulated in political games by powerful countries.

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She found out that there are numerous micronations.⁶

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Micronations are a small area or political entity that claims national sovereignty but is not recognized by other sovereign states. Through the movie “Rose Island”⁷, she begins her journey to explore different micronations. There are more than 67 separate micronations around the world, there are various reasons these micronations were founded, some as protests, to express your ideas and opinions, some to boost tourism, and some are merely for entertainment. 

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There is more and less utopianism in the process of creating a micronation. When artists claim their own micronations, you can find all of their expectations, hope, desire, and aspiration in it, they reflect on events or express their ideology, their emotion and their criticism of the current situation, through micronations.

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Elgaland-Vargaland⁸ is a micronation art project founded by two Swedish artists Carl Michael von Hausswolff and Leif Elggren in 1992. The country consists of all border areas including geographical, digital and mental territories. She is obsessed with this project, and the idea of even while dreaming, you visit Elgaland-Vargaland:

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“Each time you enter another form, such as the daydream state, you become another visitor to Elgaland-Vargaland.”⁹

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Another example is “The Xijing Men”¹⁰ is a collaborative artist team that included Tsuyoshi Ozawa (Japan), Chen Shaoxiong (China) and Gimhongsok (Korea), they hosted their own Olympics in 2008: 

“The Xijing Men hail, conceptually, from the fictitious city of Xijing, an imaged political entity in East Asia. The term Xijing is composed of Chinese characters meaning “western capital” (the city’s name would be saikyō in Japanese and suhkyung in Korean). The word play has roots in the names of real cities: Beijing (“northern capital”), Nanjing (“southern capital”) and Tokyo, known in Chinese as Donjing (“eastern capital”). Since 2006, the Xijing Men have used humour, satire, sarcasm and absurdity to create elaborate performances, drawings, photographs and objects that explore the imagined history, politics, economics and culture of this legendary place.”¹¹

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She claims her own 'Micro- land', “I can do a lot with it”, she thought. Her micronation is called “N/A”, it’s an abbreviation for not applicable, not available, or no answer. N/A is an enclave from the earth, it might be out in space, it might be in the digital world, it is a vague location that you can’t reach physically, also, you can not find it on the map.

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She created the flag with the golden python in her dream, with purple color which represents those shining irises. A flag that represents a beautiful enclave of her land. Culturally, the snake is a powerful symbol in her land. They respectfully called the snake “the small dragon”, they worship it as a god, as an ancestor, symbolising wealth, longevity, and rebirth

She builds this country to break the barrel and broader, to create a common identity for the citizen, to question the concept of a country and its border. Just like the Empire of Atlantium. 

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“Unlike most other countries, the Empire of Atlantium does not issue passports. It advocates unrestricted international freedom of movement for all peoples and therefore neither issues nor recognizes any form of restrictive travel documentation. Citizens of Atlantium are true citizens of the world.”¹²

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N/A is a planet, a land, a nation that you can move there without visas. People from N/A are friendly, even if you don’t speak their language. “Everyone is welcome to relocate to this country”, they said. It’s a nation where you easily can get citizenship, live freely, and even seek asylum.

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Discrimination towards different body shapes, skin colors, and sexuality, does not exist in N/A. People in N/A don’t look like humans anymore. They don’t have gender, they don’t have age, and death doesn't exist, once you become a citizen, you will live forever. N/A has no border, No army, it’s a neutral country. N/A citizens don’t need to pay taxes. To feed pigeons and seagulls is illegal. Freedom is the most valued in this country. If you don’t have a sense of belonging in your own country, N/A is the best place to relocate. You will never feel judged and never feel alone there. After you drink a mysterious cerise colour liquid, you will turn into a non-human shape, you will have no gender, how you look is not important anymore - in reality, we are purely data, our names lay in an automated border control system, healthcare system, and any kind of ​​biometric database.

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^6.Map of Micronations and Unrecognized states, by De Facto: https://www.defactoborders.org/map

^7.Rose Island(2020): a movie about how an italian engineer Giorgio Rosa funded the micronation 'The Republic of Rose Island' https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10287954/

^8.Elgaland-Vargaland: https://elgaland-vargaland.org/

^9.Nick Middleton, An Atlas of countries that don't exist, (2015) Page 461

^10.The Xijing Men: https://publicdelivery.org/xijing-men/

^11.From Kansas City Art Institute: https://kcai.edu/hr-block-artspace/artspace-events/xijing-men-tsuyoshi-ozawa-chen-shaoxiong-gimhongsok/

^12.Nick Middleton, An Atlas of countries that don't exist, (2015) Page 435

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Documents of N/A

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She starts to investigate the identity people give to themselves based on the value of their passport and how strong they are emotionally connected to their country as a migrant/immigrant/expatriate. Also, to question the unitarity of the passport, the travel visa and the border control system.

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She discovered there are countries such as Austria, Montenegro Turkey and Malta, that sell citizenship investment programmes along with an investment company Henley & Partners¹³, and people can get alternative citizenship through that investment program, which is absolutely a privilege. It is a huge amount of money involved in the citizenship investment, she found it astonishing how people and some of the official national institutes make citizenship a business, later, she found the golden passport exists, which, European Commission is against it on 20 October 2020.¹⁴ On the other hand, asylum seekers/refugees have been forcibly displaced and obtained refugee passports. 

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Passport index¹⁵ is a website that ranks passports, invested by Arton Capital, a company that provides global citizenship¹⁶ and financial advisory services based in Montreal, Canada.¹⁷ They have programs like residency and citizenship by investment. The fastest program for permanent residency could merely be 30 days, and citizenship fast processing in 3 months. They build their methodology and index to rank countries, which is showcased on their website aiming to advocate the idea of how important it is to invest in global citizenship.

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These make her understand more how capitalism can help you to go anywhere, and become anyone you want - as long as you have an enormous amount of money, buying citizenship is not an issue.

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What is the value of national identity? In this case, people are not knowledge nationality as a part of their identity, merely a tool to have a comfortable life, in some cases, it was driven by greed, in opposition, it is pure survival from a harsh life.

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So far, it seems our identity is being saved in the chip, we are all simply data, and those data identify us, give us freedom, and it divides us.

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Let’s back to N/A. After you obtain the new citizenship of N/A, there will be a copy of your old passport made of ceramics, it will be left to our current world, that will be one of the things you left on earth, and people know you have gone to N/A based on this ceramics passport. Ceramics is an ancient technique, the result is beautiful yet fragile. You have to hold them carefully, they can be expensive, even priceless, you might pay a big price to get them, just like Visas and passports for her. Visas and passports become a symbol of freedom for her, a document decides if she can access a country and if she can work or study in this country¹⁹; however, people could pay a huge price for freedom. Migrants from India, Thailand, and other southeast Asian countries, arrived in Portugal by middlemen - who were connected to the mafia from the homeland of migrants - after the migrants pay over €16,000, merely for a tourist visa to get to Portugal to work as a harvest worker, and the government will offer you the passport.²⁰ The migrants’ ultimate goal is EU citizenship, working under the subcontractor, they are not free before they pay off €16,000 for the tourist visa, they are not allowed to change their employer, and their salary is merely €652, which is not enough for making a living. Before they get freedom, they are experiencing a jail of modern capitalism, a human rights violation environment which is build-up by poverty, corruption, greed, exploitation, and dishonesty. 

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^13.Henley & Partners, citizenship investment: https://www.henleyglobal.com/citizenship-investment

^14.‘Golden passport' schemes: Commission proceeds with infringement case against MALTA: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_2068

^15.Passport index: https://www.passportindex.org/

^16.Global citizenship is the idea that one's identity transcends geography or political borders and that responsibilities or rights are derived from membership in a broader class: "humanity". Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_citizenship

^17.Arton Capital programs overview: ​​https://www.artoncapital.com/global-citizen-programs/program-overview/

^18.Dylan Taylor-Lehman, Sealand: The True Story of the World’s Most Stubborn Micronation and Its Eccentric Royal Family (2020) Page 11

^19.Her journey to simply find a part-time job is not easy. After received more than 5 rejections for cleaning and housekeeping jobs - which the reason is the employers are not willing to pay extra for apply the work permit for her - she truly experienced being an immigrant and migrant even with official documents is difficult to survive already, and it’s not make it better under capitalism. 

^20.Portugal - Modern slavery for an EU passport | DW Documentary : https://youtu.be/bToc8nfNhxo

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The Language of N/A

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She started to research how languages did begin. Human beings created this communication system to fix more complicated problems, more complicated than things you can solve by body language. Humans already communicated with languages some 40.000 years ago, and also had writing systems back to 3200 BC, some languages disappeared along with a kingdom or a tribe extinct, and some languages changed by the influence of other languages.

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She realized that the fastest way to connect with someone from a very different background from you is to speak a little bit of their language or travel to their land, you share common emotional memory by talking about the same land and same language. 

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Therefore, she created the language of N/A, combining different languages from different language families on earth, she recorded “This is a free country” in various languages, deconstructing them into the same soundtrack to create a new language. Using software called audacity, she cropped the sounds of the sentence to create the new language. The way the order of the single sounds was combined, was based on the distance between languages so that similar sounding languages would be played in different moments to not disturb the audience. 

⬆️First Version - mixed with Italian, Igbo, Arabic, Korean

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⬆️Second Version - mixed with German, Chinese Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish

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In the first version, she wanted to try what it sounded like if we pick languages from different continents. It sounded like ancient languages, reminding people of ancient Egyptian, Akkadian, or ​​Sumerian languages.

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The second version doesn’t sound as great and smooth as the first one, the reason she chose to make this version with German, Chinese Mandarin, Japanese, and Spanish, is because those are the languages she had learned before. Both versions sounded very difficult to learn. 

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This method of mixing different languages to create a new language has done by Polish ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, who assembled Esperanto - the language that aims to bring humanity together. In fact, Esperanto is not the only constructed language,²¹ and Solresol is an interesting one. Created in 1827 by François Sudre, Solresol is a language based on a music education method used to teach pitch singing called solfège, it only has seven letters based on musical scales, each category belongs to a certain color, Solresol can also be signed. The idea that a  musical language can also be a sign language intrigued her, after creating a few languages of N/A, She begins to realize that if the citizen of N/A  will not have a human form anymore, but instead will all merely be data, then linguistic communication is not necessary for this project. Music is a quick way to connect people without words, and sign language is a way to communicate with deaf people before the technology exists, it is considered a core of deaf culture and identity.²² Until now, she is still seeking a way for everyone to communicate with N/A.

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^21.List of constructed languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_constructed_languages

^22.DEAF CULTURE CENTRE, What is Deaf Culture? https://deafculturecentre.ca/what-is-deaf-culture/

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Connect with N/A

We have to talk about the Gashapon toy machine²³, it is a coin-operated toy machine, originally from Japan, common in other Asian countries, as well as in every corner of her homeland. She and her friends spent all their pocket money when they were teenagers, to get the toy they want. from €1.60 to €6, we ​​twist the crank from numerous machines, enthusiastically waiting for our capsule toy to be dispensed, we have the hope to get what we want at the same time, but also there is a bit of fear in the back of our head that we will get the toy we like the least. You would l only know when you would twist the capsule toy open and remove all the plastic paper around it. We couldn’t control which toy will we would get, yet it was just like an addiction, we kept on putting in more money to get the toy we wanted, it was almost like gambling. The moment we realized our wallets were empty, it was too late. 

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The first idea she has was a tourism booth to introduce N/A, with speakers playing the audio of the language of N/A. There will be a projection on the wall that plays the landscape and introduction of N/A, and there are ceramics shapes that display how N/A citizen looks on the shelves, also visas made by ceramics on other walls. She will put the flag of N/A, outside of the space, and a gashapon machine will be next to the entrance, the machine has various kinds of small sculptures of ceramics, and visitors can only be allowed to enter the tourism booth space when they get a certain type of ceramics sculpture. By the gashapon machine, she is trying to make an ironic contrast that even though you don’t need any documents to visit N/A, they are still doing it, the intention is for visitors to review the experience of going through border control, and the audience might get rejected or witness others get rejected. Gashapon machine is also a propaganda tool of N/A, by it’s playful and harmless to attract visitors, also the visitors will take the ceramic sculpture home.

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Next, she thought, perhaps people need to reach the museum exhibition by going through a “Data tunnel”. On the walls of the tunnel is all the data referring to the numbers of migrants to Europe. When a visitor arrives at the museum after going through the data tunnel, they will see the visa ceramics and shapes of N/A citizens made by ceramics display in the middle of the space, with a purple light and speakers that play the audio of N/A language. However, she was doubting this idea, “Is it necessary to emphasize the data part? Is data tunnel such an important element in this work? What experience do I want to share with the viewers?” 

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There was also an element that isn’t in Plan A and B, which is the trading system in N/A, she was hesitating if it was necessary to have a tablet or phone in the space, so that people would be able to play the mock-up of the app, or simply shows a video of the mock-up. Visitors can also trade the toy they got at the entrance, in front of the video, to contrast with digital and physical trading.

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She started to list the hierarchy of all the elements: 

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1. Gashapon toy machine
2. Trading system video
3. Flag of N/A
4. Ceramic works
5. Audio: Language/national anthem of N/A

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After knowing what is the priority, she comes up with plan C to dispose of N/A. It will be a space where people can trade ceramics and realize the reason this nation is called N/A is that they can’t physically reach it. The location is “Not applicable” in the real world, and they can only know what the citizen of N/A look like and their lifestyle - by trading our passports. 

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N/A is supposed to be a country without a border, once again, her intention is for the audience to focus on the experience of going through the border control system, you can get accepted or rejected, based on what you obtain. 

Once you become a citizen of N/A, you do not need a visa and passport to stay there, and you will have infinite wealth because the only way for you to earn your living is by trading the passports in this system.

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Click here if above plugin is not working

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This passports trading system - where you can trade your previous passport, invest in another country's passport.

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Trading stocks getting more and more popular and people are optimistic and convinced that they will make fortune and become financially independent from it. The same as investing in cryptocurrencies and NFT. All these “experts” online talking about investing like they can predict everything, they tell you the bright future you will have just as they have currently, through investing, they are selling you a dream: you will finally reach financial freedom, and by the time you are truly free. She blends this idea with a passport and visa, making them conceptual products. She expected N/A will be a trustworthy country, where people are willing to invest their time, money and life. 

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“The investors were cautious about truly believing in Sealand’s sovereignty, but there was argument enough to be made for its independence, and a precedent-setting internet business might be key to establishing this status for good.”²⁴

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She was trying different possibilities and making the message clear, the key value of the project is to demonstrate an interesting phenomenon that people are willing to abandon their own nationality - which is a part of their identity - to become a citizen of another country. 

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Is the space a place for people to understand the lifestyle of the citizen of N/A? Is the space for the propaganda of N/A? if she is still seeking a way for people to communicate with N/A, perhaps, this space could be a communication centre? It could also be a Pavilion of N/A, and she is the artist who represents N/A.

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She hasn't made the final decision yet, she is open to every possibility.

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^23.Gashapon (ガシャポン): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gashapon

^24.Sealand, Dylan Taylor-Lehman, (2020) Page 360

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Finale, but not yet the end

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Eventually, this process makes her understand how she sees her country and herself from a different perspective. She is not defining anyone else's identity or identity of a nation, but her identity. She always does not feel that she belongs in her own country, of course, this lack of sense of belonging does not solve by moving to another land, now, she sees her land from a distance, despite the fact that her identity is not complete be defined yet, she enjoys this process, to see how the environment shapes her identity, just like Amin Maalouf wrote in the book ‘In the Name of Identity: 

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“Identity isn't given once and for all: it is built up and changes throughout a person's lifetime…  A person's identity is not an assemblage of separate affiliations, nor a kind of loose patchwork; it is like a pattern drawn on a tightly stretched parchment.”25

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identity is a patchwork which will take a lifetime to complete, she envisions herself will complete her identity by continuing to develop N/A, it is a free country without a passport and visa existing, nonetheless, does it truly means freedom? is it true that everyone is welcome? she might build a community, find a way to embrace audiences who come to visit her art show and become a citizen automatically, she might reflect on different political events through N/A, she might protest through N/A, she might build the international relations with other micronations and other countries, she might establish a N/A university and a hospital, she might turn N/A into a data-based digital empire - If N/A goes in this direction, and she stands for freedom should be built on morality - how can she avoid the controversy Sealand has with HavenCo that it became a please has almost no restriction on content: 

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“Hastings reached out to the Bates family in July 1999, with a letter describing HavenCo as “pirate internet,” a characterization that immediately resonated with the former radio pirates. The plan he proposed was simple: Sealand would become the host to a set of computer servers that would in turn host websites, process payments, and store information with almost no restriction on content—save for child pornography, hacking, and spam. HavenCo’s internet would come from fiber optic cable, microwave link, and satellite feeds.”

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Above all, there is a multitude of possibilities for N/A, how can N/A develop as more of a social movement than an art project? As a non-EU citizen, if she claims a territory within the EU, is it mean she invades the Netherlands? Further, what is the social responsibility of N/A? How does N/A be a safe place for people from all over the world who didn’t have a sense of belonging in their motherland? How does N/A provide asylum for people who simply want to escape the chaos and war? She left those questions open for now.

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25.In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong, Amin Maalouf (1998) Page

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Bibliography 

Johny Pitts (2019) Afropean: Notes from Black Europe

Nick Middleton(2015) An Atlas of Countries that Don't Exist: A Compendium of Fifty Unrecognized and Largely Unnoticed States (Obscure Atlas of the World, Historic Maps, Maps Throughout History)

De Facto, Map of Micronations and Unrecognized states, https://www.defactoborders.org/map

​​Elgaland-Vargaland, https://elgaland-vargaland.org/

Yishushijie 藝術世界,http://www.yishushijie.com.cn/magazines/content-4674.aspx

Xijing Men - Xijing Olympic - Fencing (2018) https://www.youtube.com/c/PublicdeliveryOrg/featured

Henley & Partners, citizenship investment, https://www.henleyglobal.com/citizenship-investment

The European Commission, Commission proceeds with infringement case against MALTA: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_2068

Arton Capital, Passport index: https://www.passportindex.org/

Arton Capital, programs overview, https://www.artoncapital.com/global-citizen-programs/program-overview/

Dylan Taylor-Lehman (2020)  Sealand: The True Story of the World’s Most Stubborn Micronation and Its Eccentric Royal Family 

DW Documentary (2021) Portugal - Modern slavery for an EU passport https://youtu.be/bToc8nfNhxo

Joanne Cripps, DEAF CULTURE CENTRE, What is Deaf Culture? https://deafculturecentre.ca/what-is-deaf-culture/

Gashapon (ガシャポン) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gashapon

Amin Maalouf (1998) In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong

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