Since 2023, Lungomare, a platform for design and cultural production (Bolzano, Italy), has been part of the European research project B-Shapes – Borders Shaping Perceptions of European Societies. Through both curatorial and artistic approaches, Lungomare has developed Through the Prism of Borders, a three-year artistic and curatorial research project unfolding in three episodes across three European border regions, together with seven artists and collectives.

Episode 1 took shape in the divided city of Český Těšín/Cieszyn, on the border between Poland and the Czech Republic, where the curators Angelika Burtscher and Marion Oberhofer invited Polish artist Zorka Wollny to work with composer Martin Dytko on Sound Match, a performative concert developed with local residents from both sides of the border. Asking how a border resonates, the project explored bordering as part of daily life. It premiered on 2–3 October 2024, first at the former synagogue in Český Těšín and then at the Krytyka Polityczna Center in Cieszyn.

Episode 2 moved the research to the south-eastern border of Europe, between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. Here Katia Anguelova joined the curatorial team, and together they invited Esra Ersen, Georgi Bogdanov & Boris Missirkov, Ivan Moudov and the Italian collective ZimmerFrei (Anna de Manincor) to develop site-specific works addressing remnants of the past, border symbolism, and the lived experience of those crossing these territories. The resulting exhibition, Through the Prism of Borders – Episode 2: Artistic Journeys In-Between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, was presented from 9 April to 29 August 2025 at the National History Museum in Sofia.

Episode 3, the culmination of the three-year project, brought together the artistic works produced across both border regions in a travelling exhibition staged in Bolzano from 15 November 2025 to 7 February 2026, spanning four city museums — the BZ '18–'45 Exhibition Trail within the Victory Monument, the Mercantile Museum, the Bolzano Civic Museum and the South Tyrol Museum of Natural History — as well as the forecourt of Eurac Research and billboards across the urban space. For the first time in Europe, the exhibition presented the full installation of Documenting Border Barriers, a series of etchings by Canadian artist Pamela Dodds, alongside a work from the opposites series by South Tyrolean artist Karin Schmuck, created on the border between Italy and Austria.

Alongside the three episodes, the research culminated in 2025 in the publication Through the Prism of Borders. Beyond the Threshold: Art and Spaces in Between, edited by Katia Anguelova, Angelika Burtscher and Marion Oberhofer and published by Kunstverein Milano (ISBN 978-88-32125-16-0). Bringing together artistic and academic voices — including Chiara Brambilla, Esra Ersen, Anna de Manincor, Boris Missirkov & Georgi Bogdanov, Ivan Moudov, Kapka Kassabova, Zorka Wollny and Piero Zanini, among others — the book gathers interviews, essays and literary texts documenting the border walks, embedded research and artistic interventions carried out across the project's two border regions. At a moment when borders are being reinforced and redrawn across Europe, the publication offers a multi-voiced reflection on how to connect across and beyond them.

On 8 April 2025, the Through the Prism of Borders-exhibition curated by Lungomare was opened at the National History Museum of Bulgaria, see some impressions below: