The Limit as Centre: Some Considerations on the Political Imagination of the In-Between, Starting from the Central Symbol of the Crime Series Bron/Broen – The Bridge

The crime series Bron/Broen [The Bridge], co-produced in 2011 by the public televisions of Denmark and Sweden, located at the centre of the bridge over the Øresund/Öresund maritime strait which represents the border between the two states, offers one of the most prolific thematizations of in-between-ness in the popular culture of the last decade. The fact that it struck a chord of global collective imagination is revealed in its quick transformation into a highly successful international TV format, relocated on various other state borders. More than a theme, the series proposes an entire aesthetics of the in-between organized around the symbolic constellation of the bridge. A bridge simultaneously divides and reunites, generates empathetic fusion but also ushers in reflexive distancing. But, above all, as it is narratively and poetically framed in the series, it transgresses its common understanding as a connective interspace and tends to become a world to itself. A rather dangerous one, for that matter, since within its confines the usual distinctions between right and wrong are seriously called into doubt. From a space of transit, the bridge becomes – the distinction is essential – a space of transition, of change, of becoming. A space replete with risks but, essentially, a space of freedom. The essay attempts to unpack political implications less explored until now of this core symbolism.¹