The Stateless Comedy is a story about how we are currently dismounting our societies through a global movement fed by individualism. It is transcending both the virtual and the analog, and it is not necessarily about where a physical journey starts, Lesvos, but rather where it ends, Copenhagen Denmark.

Denmark, a nation-state in limbo acting according to its neighbours, Sweden and Germany, the two main stops of European migration. Copenhagen, the capital, the heart of one of Europe’s most progressive international work regions, Öresundsregionen. The latter, now completely fragmented as a result of Sweden closing its borders in January 2016, turning Copenhagen Airport into an external territory and not least the very stage of these destructive forces.

Thus, the Stateless Comedy is a redesigned airport terminal replacing the existing Terminal 3 in Copenhagen Airport, Denmark. It is based on the experiences of the displaced and hence acts as a therapy of our fragmented societies transforming the urban transitional space into a new and unknown condition.

Growing and increasing in impact over the last 200 years, our individualistic narrative now transcends all layers that make up our presence. It has established a social trajectory of displacement where a two-folded reality is not only dividing us into “us” and “them”, but is also the key driver behind populism and is being fed by the same core. It builds a common situation preserving everyday rituals, hence status quo of a common identity imposed by the state. It pushes those who do not belong into an existential grey zone where one cannot see oneself as part of any given context. Therefore, although we have never been more aware of our planetary existence and had access to such diverse opinions and endless information before, we have never been as alone. 

Using the airport as its ultimate stage, a set of 12 notional spaces materialise the most common experiences of the displaced such as rejection, anxiety, disorientation and alienation. When resolved against the program of the airport, each space’s specific reality exaggerates the common feeling to traumatic levels and is thus able to reveal the built-in destructive forces of our societies and its permanent inhabitants. The spaces therefore become representations of the mental outside in the physical inside and are able to create links between the personal experience and the social reality. Through these links, the displaced can become acknowledged and we can create an alternative future where we overcome the current social, political and programmatic fragmentation where we use the same tools, politics, program and legislation to efficiently include and exclude. We need to overcome these destructive forces to avoid a future where formal and informal statelessness becomes a future norm.