Berlin, September 15th

Berlin, a city with a complicated past but so relaxed today, a true artists’ paradise with the pace of life here allowing for endless reflection, experimentation, reading, thinking, talking, working, researching, testing limits.

Since arriving on August 1^st, we have spent the greater part of our time getting settled into a productive groove, addressing the inevitable tech issues that come up almost daily, meeting with dancers and actors and production assistants, identifying our resources, and now, finally, capturing and processing the footage that we shot during our intensive and very emotionally charged 2-month trip to Israel/Palestine, Bosnia and Serbia.

There are several significant strands or themes that are beginning to emerge as we begin work on a series of video, audio and animation sketches that will form the basis of the finished work we want to produce down the road. As part of this sketching process, we recently led a very productive improvisational workshop with 8 hugely talented dancers/performers in a dance studio in Kreuzberg (http://laborgras.com/phpwcms/). (Thanks to Pedro Osorio for putting us in touch with Vincent, Orlando and Manuel, all professionals and such nice guys.)It was a very challenging and revealing process that allowed us to get to know the dancers and to see what might be possible as we plan for other video shoots in various locations in Berlin during the coming weeks.

We have been renting an editing suite at the Medienwerkstatt BBK (http://www.bbk-berlin.de/cms/site/cat34.html) which is an artists’ dream. It is located in a building that was a hospital in the early 20^th century and is now entirely converted to artists studios, a printshop, a digital printing lab, a sculpture studio, a cinematheque and a media center with very very affordable rates for editing and shooting video in a green-screen studio. It is an artist-run facility subsidized by the city and its professional artists membership. Its longstanding success is a testament to the commitment that Berlin has to its artists and the importance it gives to contemporary cultural production.

Surprisingly, our work is becoming personal. For years, we have steered away from using ourselves and our own voices directly in our work but after being so deeply affected by the many moving stories we heard and the people we met while traveling, we realize that this can no longer be the case. Something has shifted dramatically in the way we perceive our own practice and what we need to accomplish as artists at this particular moment. This attempt at putting ourselves in the work, to be as honest as we can about what we are attempting to do, began this week in a very literal way by us taking turns interviewing each other for the camera. Somewhat awkwardly at first, we managed to draw stories and emotions and reflections out of each other that we hope can act as a framework or a kind of script for the narrative structure we ultimately want to develop into a multi-channel media landscape.

A late posting from Sarajevo

The events described below occurred on the 8th of July, but we were asked not to publish them at the moment in order to protect some of those involved. 

July 8^th

The day started in a most intense way as our guide Amir told us that he had spent the whole previous night taking care of a family of 10 Somali refugees that he and his girlfriend, Leila, had found wandering  lost in the streets of the Old Town. After convincing them that they were not from the Police or meant them no harm, they brought all 10 of them to their apartment and offered them a home-cooked meal, probably the first one they had in many weeks and a place to spend the night. It turns out that this family – a father, mother, some children, and other relatives – had left Somalia, traveled hidden in a freighter via the Suez Canal to Alexandria, Egypt, and then somehow made their way across the Mediterranean to be dropped in the Croatian coast. They had made their way – BY FOOT – from the coast to Sarajevo, an exhausting journey that involves crossing arid rocky high mountains while evading the police – all in the hopes of contacting a Bosnian guy who for the amount of 5000 Euros was going to smuggle them into Germany.  We were deeply moved by this story, and by being brought so close to the tragic reality that we often only know from the news, and to which, from our hectic New York lives can only pay scant attention. We couldn’t help but find it somehow fated that we should come across this event, as it was a poem about refugees by Wislawa Szymborska that in many ways sent us off on this journey, and we found ourselves in this particular moment in history where those who had been forced to become refugees only 15 years ago were now helping those who were fleeing from civil war and strife in their homeland. We were so awed by Amir and Leila’s generosity and openness of spirit, which they saw only as the natural and human thing to do, having known themselves what it means to be powerless and in need of help. We read in some travel guide that a visit to Sarajevo was a humbling experience, where one is reminded of how much we take for granted in our comfortable lives where we don’t encounter any privations. Little did we know that this lesson would come not only from the still-felt effects from the horrible experience of the recent war, but also from a close encounter with a distant but no less awful war in Africa that is still taking place and which is showing once again the utmost cruelty that man can bring upon man. After debating between ourselves whether or not it would be the right thing to do, we respectfully asked Amir if he would arrange for us to meet the Somalis and record their story on tape. The father of the clan, quite understandably, refused to do it for fear of being found out.

In an update from Amir that we received two weeks after this episode, he informed us that the family had reached the German border but had been turned away. We have for the moment no further news of their fate.

Historia Interrupta

July 22 –

Arrived in Budapest on July 15th, and spent the first few days dedicated to bodily needs and pleasures: got a pass at a local gym, rented bikes to get around and get to know the city on the ground, and explored 2 of the fabled bathing facilities – the Palatinus and the baroque pleasure garden of the Szecheny. Immediately we realized that our eyes would be in for a treat with block after block of spectacular architecture of the XIX century, from the over the top bourgeois Neo-Baroque to the more avant-garde fin-de-siecle art nouveau and early modernism. A big part of the city has been now immaculately restored, and we got neck cramps from looking up at so many ornate cupolas, capitals, friezes, mosaics, and turreted roofs. Still, there are also areas that look no different than they did before the collapse of communism 1989, and it is in those gray stone facades that one can imagine more clearly the dour existence that emerged in this city after WWII.
Only then, after 3 days, and after our dear friend Neon joined us here, did we explore some of the sites with more historical significance. At the National Gallery, housed in a wing of the impressive, rambling former Royal Palace on Buda Hill, we were intrigued by a collection of Late-Gothic altar pieces from churches all around Hungary – all done in a peculiar style combining polychrome wood carvings and paintings. One particular scene of the Massacre of the Newborn was horrifically graphic and would find an echo hours later when we visited the House of Terror, a museum dedicated to the rememberance of the horrors of life under the rule of Fascism and Communism. The museum itself is overproduced and incoherent, with poor presentation of the context of its exhibits, aiming more at effect than at historical information, but a visit to the underground prison cells, and many of the recollections of now ageing victims of those regimes were chilling. More than anything we felt enormous sadness to see how a prosperous and vibrant city, at the heart of the cultural and scientific heart of Europe was not only physically destroyed, but also robbed of its soul by decades of war and brutal repression.
Late afternoon we drove to the Statue Park, a kind of open air museum-graveyard for all the monumental sculptures that were taken out of the city after the fall of communism. It was ironic to see such grandiose statues demoted to signify a footnote in history – albeit a very painful one. In a little exhibit area at the park, we watched a screening of a mesmerizing film made with archival footage from educational films created by the communist secret police to train spies and informers. The fascinating – and frightening - thing about these clips is that all the scenes in them are recreated by police officers who enact the “performance” of their under-cover activities. It would have been funny in a Maxwell Smart kind of way if we didn’t know that these people were actually committed to erasing even the smallest trace of dissent from their society. The level of perversity in devising how to spy on people, how to break into their homes, how to use informers, and above all, how to maintain a constant atmosphere of fear and paranoia was simply horrifying and it made us understand more completely what the people in this country have had to survive and how it must have affected their collective psyche.

The In Between City

July 12, 13

We were not quite sure what to expect from Belgrade (pop. 1.6 million) before we arrived, we only knew that it was bombed by the US and NATO forces in 1999 for its aggression towards Kosovo and as a result, Americans are not exactly welcomed warmly.

Belgrade seems to lack a clear identity of its own and is trying to figure out who it is after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the end of Communism and the collapse of the socialist state --as well as  the trauma left by the last Balkan wars.  It is still quite isolated from the rest of Europe as all Serbs need to apply for visas to travel anywhere, even to go to Italy or Greece which are so close by.

The city is very much in between the past and future, east and west.It seems to be on pause at the moment, but unfortunately, most of the people we have spoken to do not seem to have a lot of hope for its future. A curator we met today at the Museum for Contemporary Art, which has been closed for renovations for the past 2 years, told us that in Belgrade “we cannot expect anything”—because the level of corruption is so high and most of the politicians do not see the value in supporting contemporary art, only sporting events and pop concerts.  According to our architect friend Ivan Kucina, the city lacks any real culture of its own, apart from the “the culture of greed,” referring to the monopolies and organized mafia groups controlling how business is done, often thoughtlessly and hastily without any real concern for the development of an economic/social infrastructure.

For a city that has been continuously inhabited since before Roman times, it is surprising to us that there is so little evidence of these various civilizations in the existing architecture that is left standing—each time the city was occupied the existing architecture and its monuments were demolished and built again. Apart from a core of turn-of-the century grand, neoclassical buildings, the city consists mostly of drab modernist developments from the 50’s and 60’s, a time when the city experienced its most rapid growth under Tito. The few modernist icons still standing (often in ruins) are now being retrofitted to suit the needs of the new neo-liberal entrepreneurs.

The best thing about being here for us has been the opportunity to spend time with Ivan and his partner Barbara (THANKS FOR THE GREAT DINNER), as well as with Biljana Djurdjevic, a hugely talented artist who paints powerful figurative canvases packed with psychological depth and unfliching human suffering.

See http://www.biljanadjurdjevic.com/

Thank you Biljana for our memorable lunch on the river in Zemun, perhaps the most charming part of Belgrade by far. 

 

 

 

Border crossings

July 11^th

Drove from Sarajevo to Belgrade, through the mountains of northern Bosnia, and passing by many villages, each populated by a different ethnic-religious community, which could be identified by the prominent minarets or bell-towers or steeples, as well as cemeteries.

The trip took longer than planned – we were on a narrow 2 lane road and there were 2 accidents which stopped traffic completely, at one point for almost 45 minutes. Then we got stuck behind two huge trucks trudging through the steep inclines and curves. Finally we got to the Croatian border and to the freeway, only to be detained for 3 hours waiting to get through the Serbian border ( So many borders in the Balkans!!).

As is turns out we were engulfed by a mass exodus of Turkish families from Western Europe, who were driving in caravans from Germany, Switzerland, France, and Belgium, with whole families packed in vans for their annual summer vacation in their ancestral villages in Turkey. They drive for several days straight on – passing through Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, and Bulgaria before arriving in Turkey. It was fascinating to be caught in the middle of this huge ethnic mobilization that happens every year – at first we were frustrated, even irritated, to have to wait in such line to pass through the border, but then we realized that we were actually witnessing a cultural phenomenon which could be even romantically tied to tales of ancient caravans or migrations, even though we knew these were simply people taking their annual holiday.

We finally arrived in Belgrade after sunset to find ourselves driving in a city where all the street signs are in Cyrillic!! Somehow we managed to safely arrive in our hotel and settle in for the night.

Memorials in Sarajevo

July 9^th=- 10^th

Visited today the “Tunnel Museum”, a small memorial to the only connection between the besieged Sarajevo and the outside world. The secret tunnel ran from the basement of one house to another for 800 yards, passing beneath the airport runway – which was controlled by the UN – and allowing for the transport of fuel, food, medicines, and arms to defend the city. It was also a way to get some of the seriously wounded and ill to get better treatment. Today this small private museum is run by the family that owns the house on the “safe” side and it is their continued mission to bring awareness to visitors by allowing them into their home and learning about the tunnel and its use. Because of a new airport runway, only about 20 yards of the tunnel can be visited today, but it is enough to give one an impression of what it was like to go through it during such a time of crisis.

Earlier that day we heard that there was a march passing through Sarajevo of about 2500 people, mostly women, who were going by foot to Srebrenica, on the eve of the commemoration of a horrible massacre in July of 1995. These cold-blooded killings were the only ones to be recognized as Genocide by the Hague Tribunal, even though many other slaughters like these happened in Bosnia during the war There was little information about this event, so we could not find the marchers, whom we wanted to join at least for part of their journey and pay our respects.

July 11 was declared a Memorial Day all over Europe, and the day before a solemn mood took over Sarajevo, with the television only playing classical music or showing some programs related to the massacre. We watched one quite disturbing film, probably made by English or American TV, which covered in great detail and with many interviews and graphic images of women and children fleeing or being chased out of the NATO base that was supposed to protect them. There were also harrowing images of Bosniak soldiers arriving to safe places after escaping through the forests the brutal shelling of the Serbs.

Being here for this commemoration added another  layer of emotional complexity to our visit to this city and its tragic history.

Some People

July 8^th

Today we visited the old Jewish cemetery on the edge of the city, a deeply moving experience –seeing the Hebrew script etched into a thousand mostly modest stones that bear the marks of time with graves dating back to the 16^th century and continuing right up to the middle of the 20^th century which is a testament to how integrated this community was here in Sarajevo. The cemetery is a jumble of weeds, broken paths and fallen monuments, but not due to the desecration that can be found in many other jewish cemeteries in Europe. Instead, we learned that it was on the front line of fighting between Bosniaks and Serbs in the last war and many soldiers were killed on the spot while others used the gravestones for protection. It was the jewish dead who helped to save their old city.

We drove next to the opposite side of the city to an idyllic spot on a hill overlooking the entire valley. It was in this spot that Amir’s father spent 2 1/2 years in the trenches which are still visible  and which are surrounded by corpses of buildings still standing as horrific reminders of what happened there only 15 years ago. This spot used to be a forest but all the trees were cut down during the siege for fuel. Across the city sits another mountain that is off limits to visitors as it is still covered with thousands of land mines.

Globalization is just around the corner but it has not yet arrived here in Sarajevo, apart from the  Coca Cola signs, awnings and umbrellas to be found in every tavern and cafe. It is refreshing not to find the same old chain stores and global brands on every corner. Even though there are perhaps 20 kebab restaurants on each block, each one has its own unique characteristic with something special to offer and most everything is still family-owned. We want to believe that the people of this country will find the balance between developing their economy and keeping their rich culture intact.