The trick to getting into the guarded harbour area at Le Havre, explains Matei Bejenaru in his Travelling Guide, is to buy a set of overalls, a construction worker’s helmet and the harbour newspaper. The former allow you to pose as a harbour worker, and the latter details ship departures. “Dressed like this, you can enter the Quai d’Atlantique without any problems through one of the access gates after the lunch break, when you can intermingle with the other workers,” states the 18-page colour booklet.

Travelling Guide is written in the style of a guide-book, but is not intended for affluent Western tourists. It is a piece of controversial art which aims to “subvert the language and purpose of the format”, speaking directly to Romanian travellers and illegal immigrant workers, helping them through border controls, ports and stations into Western Europe. It contains instructions on acquiring forged identity papers, fake UK national insurance numbers, includes a bar chart grading the risk factor at each crossing point, instructions on breaking into shipping containers and safety tips.

The provocative work is part of the Vienna-based Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary foundation’s (TB A21) latest project, Küba: Journey Against the Current, which is based on the journey of a converted industrial barge, the Negrelli, as it travelled up the Danube from the Balkans to Vienna, along the river that is the frontier between East and West. At each of its stops — Constanza, Romania; Rousse, Bulgaria; Vukovar in Croatia; Novi Sad in Serbia; Budapest; Bratislava and in Vienna — TB A21 commissioned artworks by local artists.

The Danube’s route, from the Balkans to Vienna, now marks the odyssey of many illegal immigrants. Romanians do not need a visa to enter Western Europe, but without a work permit may not seek employment. Britain requires both but still remains popular, explains Bejenaru. “Romanians don’t like the weather or the food, but there is no identity card so they feel freer there.”

One trick, according to Travelling Guide, is to buy a plane ticket for a country that does not require a visa, with an evening layover at Heathrow. After midnight, airport security will ask the passenger to leave the waiting area, and if he has no visa, will grant entrance for 24 hours and direct the passenger to another area, from which he can simply walk out.

Official figures say 900,000 Romanians are working abroad, but the real figure is probably three times as many, sending home billions of euros each year. “Romania is exporting 25 per cent of its work force and that is a problem not just for Romania, but also for Europe,” says Bejenaru.

He denies that his Travelling Guide encourages people to break the law. “This is a work of art and must be judged as a work of art. You can check for yourself if the information is true. Can you say that a film director is encouraging people to shoot each other because people are shot in his film? This is an alarm signal.”

In fact such is the level of detail that a more accurate analogy would be a film that instructs on how to load, aim and fire in a gun in the middle of a war zone.

Either way, Travelling Guide raises pointed and uncomfortable questions about Europe in the 21st century. Berejanu is now talking to the Tate Modern about showing his work.

Küba: Journey Against the Current, Nestroyhof, Nestroyplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, www.tba21.org, until September 9