Migration to Europe is by no means a new phenomenon. Our ancestors migrated across Eurasia from Africa around 1.75 million years ago. During the first millennium B.C.E., widespread migration to Europe laid the ethnic groundwork for the emergence of the modern European nation states. While the Germanic languages recall this period as The Great Migration of Peoples (Die Völkerwanderung; De Grote Volksverhuizing, etc), the Latin language family remembers it as The Barbaric Invasions (Invasioni barbariche; Invasions barbares, etc). If a language is viewed as an archive, it is remarkable how differently European languages represent the same past: people vs barbarians; migration vs invasion… Today, these once-hostile peoples are now united under the idea of Europe in the context of the European Union—though conflict still arises through the problematic, ongoing project of defining who and what exactly gets to be ‘European’.

The Schengen Agreement, which was signed in 1985, increased the mobility in Europe by allowing citizens of 27 member states and their families to travel, reside, and work freely within the Schengen area. While most immigrants in Europe are Europeans, others have origins from outside the continent, arriving from former colonies or as guest labourers, skilled workers, refugees, and asylum seekers in addition to the undocumented. Identities may vary, but the desire for improved living conditions is universal. Mieke Bal coined the term “migratory culture” as she explains that it eliminates the “us vs. them” dichotomy, while making migration a natural phenomenon in which everyone lives and participates (Bal 2022, 3). Furthermore, immigrants give back by making a significant contribution to Europe's economy, society, and growth. Yet, the official branding of Europe gives immigrant populations little emphasis, with media narratives carrying primarily pejorative connotations. As immigration to Europe increased rapidly from 2013, a phenomenon labelled “The European Migrant Crisis,” anti-immigrant sentiment was inflamed. The significant fall in the number of immigrants resulting from the “EU-Turkey deal” enacted in March 2016 has coincided with the rise of far-right movements across Europe. Day by day, while the borders of Europe are being strengthened and fortified against migration, a discourse grows which increasingly places “Europeans” and “immigrants” into a polarised dichotomy. As encounters become hostile and turn the public space we all inhabit into a battleground for domination, the voices of the ascribed “others” are silenced and their stories made absent.

As a teenager, Domenique was inspired by "outsiders," listening to punk and industrial music. At sixteen, he left Friesland and moved to Zwolle, where he participated in the creation of a squatter centre and engaged in anti-establishment art: "I fell in with a family of art pranksters. I just loved anything that seemed unacceptable” (Plantenga 2017). As he encountered undocumented people there and heard their traumatic stories, his interest in outcasts was rekindled: “They didn’t receive emergency or temporary residency status, so they ended up in a kind of no man’s land. Many end up in the underground economy or on the streets” (Plantenga 2017).

“A Paper Monument for the Paperless” is a monument-in-the-making to raise the visibility and awareness of the undocumented through the medium of public space. It is an example of a counter-monument. Domenique's first opportunity to work with “the paperless” was in 2013 whilst giving a woodcutting workshop at We Are Here, a refugee community centre, which he describes as not going as well as he’d hoped “because the undocumented could not concentrate and were worried about other things” (Plantenga 2017). Eventually, he had the idea to collaborate with other artists to draw portraits, giving a face to the faceless—thus, “A Paper Monument for the Paperless” was born.

“I thought these faces needed to be seen around the city because it’s really surreal: Who are these faces, and who’s spending so much time on these anonymous humans? ...I wanted to give something back to these people to aid their visibility” (Plantenga 2017).

As a silent demonstration, “A Paper Monument for the Paperless” confronts society with the faces of those who are absent from the public sphere, bringing them into our daily lives.

"The street is an important medium for my work. It's a transitional space between private and public, by putting something in there I intervene in the everyday. I reach so many different groups and communities. I want to reach out to people outside my network and engage with people with different beliefs, values and backgrounds. I want to break with my sense of social spectatorship and explore and question from a participatory position who “the other" is in our society” (Swaving 2018)

Domenique's art seeks to bring people together and involve everyone in the discussion, despite the tension this may cause. The monument he began is limitless: anyone and everyone can contribute to the ongoing creation and re-creation of “A Paper Monument” by printing and hanging portraits on the streets, or even tearing them down. You can participate in the process of making “A Paper Monument for the Paperless” by downloading the pdfs, printing them, and pasting them on the walls of your city, or by ordering a set of posters from Domenique's website to include in your collection: https://www.himmelsbach.nl/portfolio-view/a-paper-monument-for-the-paperless/