Exploring Border Images as Visual Discourses: The Example of Basel Trinational Urban Agglomeration

This article examines how images contribute to the narration and contestation of borders by analysing visual discourses within the context of the Basel trinational agglomeration. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework that combines Rose’s critical visual methodology, Barthes’ visual semiotics, and Kress and van Leeuwen’s social semiotics, it proposes a multi-level analytical framework for understanding how borders are visually represented and experienced. From a methodological point of view, visual discourse analysis is approached at different sites (production, image, and audiencing) and at three levels of analysis: the single image, the series of images, and the comparison of different image series. Each level makes it possible to grasp distinct dimensions of meaning production and preferred reading. Empirically, the study focuses on two photo-reportages commissioned as part of the Internationale Bauausstellung Basel 2020, a trinational building and urban planning exhibition that sought to promote regional integration across Switzerland, France, and Germany. The analysis demonstrates how images operate as discursive instruments, simultaneously aesthetic and political, that contribute to the way cross-border cooperation is visually constructed. While one photo-reportage highlights persistent material and symbolic markers of the border, the other envisions it as a lived, embodied space of interaction and ecological engagement. Through their distinct visual discourses, both photo-reportages illuminate how borders are made visible—or invisible—via visual media. The article argues that images should not be treated as mere illustrations but as active elements in border-making processes. It also offers a transferable analytical framework for engaging with visual materials in border studies and beyond.