Crossborder toolkit

CrossBorder toolkit is an artistic and technical intervention that develops an open-source “black box” toolkit for refugees. It emerges in response to sea crimes that are committed in the dark, where people-in-transit have no way to emit their signal of existence. The toolkit wishes to allow them to record human rights abuses and signal for rescue.

The current project explores how artists and programmers can ethically intervene in authoritarian systems, transforming tools of control into instruments of survival and legal accountability.

Crossorder toolkit addresses the humanitarian crisis at sea by repurposing the concept of an airplane’s “black box” for the survival of refugees. The project centers on the creation of a low-cost, open-source toolkit designed to document violence and provide a digital trail of truth in environments where transparency is intentionally obscured.

The core idea is to shift the power of surveillance from the state to the individual. Built from accessible hardware, such as low-footprint computers and weather-sealed, 3D-printed cases. This toolkit allows users to record evidence of pushbacks and emit satellite emergency signals when threatened. A critical component is the development of a custom restrictive public license: while refugees have full permission to use the software for protection and asylum claims, its use by police, coast guards, or military for enforcement or interdiction is strictly prohibited.