The wooden panels embody above all the reinforced border between outside and inside, between public and private space, between the common good and individual prosperity, where the contrast between social groups, but also the existential duality between one’s own and the other is played out: The sharp juxtaposition between exclusive clientele and less affluent populations is ultimately mirrored in the shop window of the luxury boutiques themselves. The reinforcement by the constructed wooden panels thus underpins the symbolic power of the display windows as clear dividing lines, as evidence of a division, where differences are formed and margins emerge, from which the excluded and disadvantaged ultimately organize themselves into protest groups, which are then perceived as a threat. In the field of tension between socio-politically charged, opposing points of view, Malagrida subtly poses the question of perspective in order to relativize the narrow classification of perpetrator and victim, the clear distinction between attack and defense: The positioning in front of or behind the barricade determines the perspective and the adopted one-sided view (excluding the others in each case) from which images of the enemy emerge. 

During the spread of Corona, the mouth-nose protection became an attribute of the individual in face of a health threat and acquired importance as a universal sign of a new pandemic reality. A reality that – similar to the covered shop windows in Paris barricadé – is characterized by a defensive posture adopted to protect against an external threat – whether it is the attack by a militant civil movement or a virus.