Traveling
Painters
August 15th
2003.
(Andrea
Saula)
Hello and welcome to UNMIK on air with Sputnik Kilambi
Ljubljana, Kumrovec, Porec, Knin, Sibenik, Dubrovnik,
Mostar, Sarajevo, Pale, Tuzla, Srebrenica, Banja Luka, Bihac, Zagreb, Vukovar, Beli
Manastir, Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Beograd, Novi Pazara, Podgorica,
Cetinje, Kosovska Mitrovica, Pristina, Skoplje and Ohrid.
Once these cities were part of former Yugoslavia. A fun
trip, not that long ago, would have enabled one to take in all of them – but
for more than ten years now, the only thing that still bonded these places was
the sound of gunfire. The gunfire may have subsided, but a whole bunch of
checkpoints and border zones have taken its place.
But contacts are being reestablished - slowly, people
are talking to each other again but it’s clear they need stimulus. Using
billboards as a medium to open up discussion and get people talking to each
other may seem far-fetched to some, but it seems to have worked for European
artists, Rene Klarenbeek and Dagmar Drews.
They describe their journey through the cities
mentioned earlier as a kind of Balkan odyssey. Their starting point was Den
Haag, where The International Criminal Tribunal for ex Yugoslavia (ICTY) is
based. From the place where the war criminals, people responsible for
innumerable deaths and damage in almost ten years of wars in the Balkans are
being tried, Rene Klarenbeek and Dagmar Drews continued towards places where
the crimes happened. Their idea was to use billboards to stimulate discussions
amongst the people they encountered. The war happened, says Dagmar who hails
from Germany and certain things should be discussed.
Dagmar Drews: Generations of my grandparents,
they also don’t want to talk about the war. They just want to talk about the
future. They don’t think about it, not talk about it. But I think it’s very
important to talk about things. Something can be developed in a new direction.
During the clashes, the Balkans were on the news every
night, adds Dagmar, but since then, the region seems to have disappeared off
the world map, as if nothing had happened. Neither is anyone talking about
what’s happening now.
Dagmar Drews:
With these paintings we want people to make a kind of overview how
people are thinking, how do they see the future. We can have a kind of an
overview how the people were living or how the people are living now in ex
Yugoslavia.
The mobile canvases and billboards are being exhibited
in city squares, explains project assistant Maja Cvoro, with local artists, NGO
workers and passers-by invited to put their marks on the canvas. The idea is
for the people to intervene and show their point of view on a particular topic.
The billboards then travel to another city after being repainted.
Maja Cvoro: Using this kind of traveling
platform, artists basically are making a kind of collection of testimonies
about everyday events, about stories of inhabitants of former Yugoslavia. Till
the end of their journey they intend to make a unique collection of pictures
and of thousands of written messages. During the journey, the whole project is
being documented on a web site. You can visit it on www.painter.nl, where you can participate in
forums, and see the gallery of previous projects.
There are still divided cities in the Balkans.
Mitrovica immediately springs to mind when Kosovo is mentioned, but another
divided city is Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dagmar thinks that they hit
the target when performing in that city.
Dagmar Drews:
We try also to raise questions on billboards so that people can start
a dialogue in front of it. Like in Mostar, we were in the middle of the town,
where the borderline between both parts, of the Croatian and Muslim part once
stood, and we raised the question if they think that Mostar is OK today. And on
this place, people only passed by from both sides. And the billboard affected
people. People were stopping by suddenly and started talking to each other.
Dagmar and Rene will come with the same canvas to
Mitrovica and Pristina in the coming weeks. But the Grande finale is due to
take place in Kumrovec, the hometown of the former father of the former state,
says Maja.
Maja Cvoro:
At the end of this project, on the 18th of October, artists
will organize a one-day exhibition in Tito’s villa in Kumrovec. It’s Tito’s
hometown and in a way it would represent a postmortem message to the ex father
of the state. In that way, they would cover all the inner walls with all the
comments collected from former Yugoslavia.
The continuingly fragile security situation in the
Balkans makes such things more difficult to comprehend, admits Dagmar. A lot of wounds are still open; those who
committed crimes are not yet in custody; many people still suffer from the
economic consequences of the conflict, some are scared to go against the
attitude of the majority or just afraid to break old prejudices. Although the
world can’t and doesn’t want to wait, it is an inescapable fact that the
Balkans needs some time. Healing deserves some time, stresses Dagmar.
Dagmar Drews:
In some places it might be too early but on the other side in some
places, mostly the young people have started a dialogue. I think it starts with
the young people, they go over, and they switch the borders. But sometimes it’s
only such a small effect that one takes a picture at home and perhaps he is
starting thinking in a different direction. Sometimes you can’t really measure
it. But I think every billboard had an effect in a way
Kosovo will soon have the opportunity to show whether
it is ready or not to discuss the issues raised by these artists.
We’ll certainly keep you posted – that’s all from this
edition of UNMIK on AIR. Thanks for listening.