The Venice action - How it all started
In 2007 my colleagues and I founded and art association called Tac.ka in our hometown of Prijedor. One of the first study trips abroad and the first bigger contemporary art event we visited together was the Venice Biennial of contemporary arts. As is known, the Venice Biennial is the oldest of its kind in the world and the participating artists are represented in one big collective exhibition and in their respective national pavilions. In 2007, more than a decade after the end of the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina our country still did not have its own pavilion and no Bosnian art was represented at this event.We weren't immediately aware of all the possible causes for this lack of cultural representation of our country in such an important international event and decided to investigate it more once we were back home. We did assume one of the main reasons was economical as our country was in general struggling with financing and cultural project or event. However, we wanted to leave a mark and at least "imagine" our national pavilion in Venice. We took a big black cardboard dot ( tacka in our language and the name of our group) and explored the options for its aesthetic and conceptual integration into the exhibiting work of arts in the National Pavilions of the Bieannale.
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The Banja Luka exhibition - a clearance
Once home from Venice we wanted to present our action to the local public and use this as an opportunity to raise the question of the lack of state-sponsored artistic representation of our arts on international level. We were offered a space at our Academy campus in Banja Luka where we all previously studied or were studying at that moment. The country´s 2nd biggest city of Banja Luka is the capital of the Serb-ruled entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other entity being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina controlled by Bosniaks and Croats. However, political and cultural tendencies of the Serb-controlled entity are to distance themselves from anything emphasizing their Bosnian identity. We were well aware of the existence of this sentiment but knew little of how much it was part of the agenda of the local policy makers. When we actually opened the exhibition we invited other of our colleagues who were not part of our association but shared our general concerns about our state´s cultural policy. To mimic the national pavilions of the Venice Biennale – the event that triggered our interest for this topic and set us to action, we hang up the name of our country above the exhibition entrance. An immediate reaction of the Academy administration and of the University of Banja Luka´s rector Stanko Stanic ensued. We were ordered to put down the country's name or the exhibition would be cancelled. It didn't help the name of the country was written only in cyrillic alphabet. We complied with this censorship request only partly, removing some of the letters and changing the meaning what was written into "Barefoot or boss & shit". Other than what we expected, this title turned out to be less provocative for the administration and was allowed to stay.
The Trento exhibition - expanding the imaginary
The following year we were invited by the Andromeda Gallery in Trento to present the project of the Imaginary Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina within the Manifesta 7 Parallel events. Beside the Venice action we showed our own artworks and did a group performance – a reenactment of the traditional Balkan ritual of fear smelting in one of the public squares in Trento. We saw the Imaginary Pavilion as an opportunity to rethink and explore those concepts or constructs that, in our opinion, were "imaginary" and as such, enhancing the interpersonal and intercultural conflicts and fostering stereotypes and prejudices. One of these concepts was fear in all its expressions: irrational fears or phobias, fear of death, fear of otherness and similar. The fear, we knew, is also an excellent accomplice to those who want to divide and control.
Imaginary and virtual - Art Zeppelin project
In the following few years we organised more editions of Imaginary Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina that format-wise were staying close to the first exhibition in Banja Luka: the documentation of the Venice action in one space and the works of contemporary Bosnian artists in the other. In 2011 we finally had an opportunity to present the project in a different context. At the time Tac.ka members Mladen Bundalo and Dajan Spiric were studying new media arts in Brno in Czech Republic where they were rethinking the contemporary exhibiting models. As a result, they came up with a concept of an online 3D gallery called Art Zeppelin. In that same year I worked at the CYNETART Festival for computer-based arts in Dresden which was a one of the best platforms for presenting the type of projects like Art Zeppelin. When it came to deciding which kind of exhibition we'd go on presenting in the Art Zeppelin Gallery a clear and logical choice was made: Imaginary Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Instead of showcasing individual artistic works this time we focused on challenging the white cube logic of the exhibition space by presenting the concepts and cultural tropes that in my opinion had a strong imaginary character and role within the three national discourses in Bosnia.
The presented aspects of the imaginary:
Bridges in Bosnia/ Imaginary aspects once and today – Bridge over Drina
Since 2007 the bridge over Drina, a masterpiece of the architect Mimar Sinan built in 1571 became UNESCO's World Heritage. To the only bosnian Nobel Preis winner for literature, Ivo Andric, this bridge served as leitmotiv for his book „The Bridge Over Drina“ in which he describes, among other things, the atrocities that Ottoman rulers did to local serbian population in Bosnia. The book became the most cited source of justification for the crimes against non-Serbs in the last war from Serbian intellectuals of all levels. The imaginary, partly fictitious past as described in the book (and in books in general) served as an inspiration for revenge.
Since 2007 the bridge over Drina, a masterpiece of the architect Mimar Sinan built in 1571 became UNESCO's World Heritage. To the only bosnian Nobel Preis winner for literature, Ivo Andric, this bridge served as leitmotiv for his book „The Bridge Over Drina“ in which he describes, among other things, the atrocities that Ottoman rulers did to local serbian population in Bosnia. The book became the most cited source of justification for the crimes against non-Serbs in the last war from Serbian intellectuals of all levels. The imaginary, partly fictitious past as described in the book (and in books in general) served as an inspiration for revenge.
Edit: A famed Serbian ex-Bosnian director Emir Kusturica built an (imaginary) old town nearby this bridge and called it Andricgrad (Andric-town). In his own words, when deciding which architectural styles to implement he opted, among others, for a broad renaissance square because this was the style that would´ve come to Bosnia too had it never had fallen under Ottoman rule! Check out this wikipedia article about Andric-town and the referenced articles.
Bosnian Sun Pyramide / Imaginary project of Bosnian identity
Under one hill in Visoko near Sarajevo an amateur researcher of Pyramidal construction Semir Osmanagic claims to have discovered a Pyramid. Osmanagic imagines, since there is no scientific prove for what he says, that the Bosnian Pyramid of Sun is the oldest and biggest in the world. It is commonplace in the post-Yugoslav political and historical discourse for the nations to claim, always without any or with very suspicious evidences that their people is the oldest, the first, the only. Though, never before such thing became a project that led people to destroy an entire hill and even got financial support from the authorities for doing it.
Under one hill in Visoko near Sarajevo an amateur researcher of Pyramidal construction Semir Osmanagic claims to have discovered a Pyramid. Osmanagic imagines, since there is no scientific prove for what he says, that the Bosnian Pyramid of Sun is the oldest and biggest in the world. It is commonplace in the post-Yugoslav political and historical discourse for the nations to claim, always without any or with very suspicious evidences that their people is the oldest, the first, the only. Though, never before such thing became a project that led people to destroy an entire hill and even got financial support from the authorities for doing it.
Bosnian „gastarbeiter“ in Germany / My personal Bosnia
The part of Bosnian citizens that cultivate the most unrealistic image of their country of origin are the Bosnians living abroad. Most of them live in between, not fully integrated in the new homeland and lost connections with the reality in the country of origin. In the Zeppelin flying statements belong to some of them that were asked to say what is so special about Bosnia. Many of them give unrealistic statements that depict a country that doesn't really exist in that way and what is actually a response to their inability or refusal to integrate where they live at the moment and to fully accept the fact they no longer live where they used to live and where they pay a visit once a year.
Ars Aevi/An imaginary museum of Contemporary arts in Sarajevo
One of the most important collections of contemporary arts in Southeast Europe is in Sarajevo. It's being collected thanks to the ArsAevi project that united some of the most famous names in the world of contemporary art that donated their artworks to the city of Sarajevo during and after the war such as Michelangelo Pistoletto, Marina Abramovic, Dennis Oppenheim, Anis Kapoor, Cindy Sherman, Daniel Buren, Sol le Vit, Joseph Kosut and many others. Although it's been there for almost two decades there is no museum of contemporary arts built yet and it is not always possible to visit this collection. Here presented doors that stand between different rooms of the Zeppelin are the photos of the Janis Kounellis art-installation that this artist added to the collection as a present to the Sarajevo city. The city authorities had to temporarily refuse this millions of euros worth present due to a lack of an adequate space for its preservation.
Imaginary Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Venice / Action by TAČ.KA in 2007
Shocked by the fact that Bosnia and Herzegovina even at the Venice Biennial Bosnia is not represented the members of the TAČ.KA association placed a paper black dot on the works of the artists exhibiting in Venice in 2007. In that way they symbolically created an Imaginary Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the discussion about the non-representation of Bosnian art started. In 2009 the members did an enquiry: the visitors of the Venice Biennial were asked to show where the Bosnian Pavilion was. All of them were convinced of seeing it somewhere at the Biennial (or was it on TV?).
Top List of the Surrealists / Game Over?
Shortly before the escalation of the conflict in Bosnia the most popular TV-show of the Balkans was the so called Top List of the Surrealists. A group of musicians, actors and other artists organized a comedy show in which they predicted almost everything that would happen in the coming years. At the end of the show they always played an improvisation of the Pacman video-game. In this improvisation the 'negatives' were having national colours of the republics of Yugoslavia federation and chasing all together the white figure (Pacman) representing Yugoslavia. At the end, after apparent successes of the 'negative ones' the white figure would suddenly eliminate all its (nationalistic) opponents. The question is: if the Surrealists were brave enough to predict all the negative outcomes of the Yugoslavian conflict does the final victory of Pacman means the idea of brotherhood and unity will win and nationalists will be defeated?
Bridges in Bosnia / Imaginary aspects once and today - Old Bridge in Mostar
More than 400 years old bridge in Mostar was destroyed in 1993 by Croatian forces. It was rebuilt in 2004 and put the next year on the UNESCO's list of world heritage as a “Symbol of reconciliation and international cooperation and also as the symbol of coexistence of different religious, cultural and ethnic communities“. Mostar town is nowadays and despite the beliefs and desires of the International Community a town almost fully divided in Eastern part with Bosniak and Western part with Croat majority and almost no Serbian community living in it.
The part of Bosnian citizens that cultivate the most unrealistic image of their country of origin are the Bosnians living abroad. Most of them live in between, not fully integrated in the new homeland and lost connections with the reality in the country of origin. In the Zeppelin flying statements belong to some of them that were asked to say what is so special about Bosnia. Many of them give unrealistic statements that depict a country that doesn't really exist in that way and what is actually a response to their inability or refusal to integrate where they live at the moment and to fully accept the fact they no longer live where they used to live and where they pay a visit once a year.
Ars Aevi/An imaginary museum of Contemporary arts in Sarajevo
One of the most important collections of contemporary arts in Southeast Europe is in Sarajevo. It's being collected thanks to the ArsAevi project that united some of the most famous names in the world of contemporary art that donated their artworks to the city of Sarajevo during and after the war such as Michelangelo Pistoletto, Marina Abramovic, Dennis Oppenheim, Anis Kapoor, Cindy Sherman, Daniel Buren, Sol le Vit, Joseph Kosut and many others. Although it's been there for almost two decades there is no museum of contemporary arts built yet and it is not always possible to visit this collection. Here presented doors that stand between different rooms of the Zeppelin are the photos of the Janis Kounellis art-installation that this artist added to the collection as a present to the Sarajevo city. The city authorities had to temporarily refuse this millions of euros worth present due to a lack of an adequate space for its preservation.
Imaginary Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Venice / Action by TAČ.KA in 2007
Shocked by the fact that Bosnia and Herzegovina even at the Venice Biennial Bosnia is not represented the members of the TAČ.KA association placed a paper black dot on the works of the artists exhibiting in Venice in 2007. In that way they symbolically created an Imaginary Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the discussion about the non-representation of Bosnian art started. In 2009 the members did an enquiry: the visitors of the Venice Biennial were asked to show where the Bosnian Pavilion was. All of them were convinced of seeing it somewhere at the Biennial (or was it on TV?).
Top List of the Surrealists / Game Over?
Shortly before the escalation of the conflict in Bosnia the most popular TV-show of the Balkans was the so called Top List of the Surrealists. A group of musicians, actors and other artists organized a comedy show in which they predicted almost everything that would happen in the coming years. At the end of the show they always played an improvisation of the Pacman video-game. In this improvisation the 'negatives' were having national colours of the republics of Yugoslavia federation and chasing all together the white figure (Pacman) representing Yugoslavia. At the end, after apparent successes of the 'negative ones' the white figure would suddenly eliminate all its (nationalistic) opponents. The question is: if the Surrealists were brave enough to predict all the negative outcomes of the Yugoslavian conflict does the final victory of Pacman means the idea of brotherhood and unity will win and nationalists will be defeated?
Bridges in Bosnia / Imaginary aspects once and today - Old Bridge in Mostar
More than 400 years old bridge in Mostar was destroyed in 1993 by Croatian forces. It was rebuilt in 2004 and put the next year on the UNESCO's list of world heritage as a “Symbol of reconciliation and international cooperation and also as the symbol of coexistence of different religious, cultural and ethnic communities“. Mostar town is nowadays and despite the beliefs and desires of the International Community a town almost fully divided in Eastern part with Bosniak and Western part with Croat majority and almost no Serbian community living in it.