We’re Not Like Them, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka, Croatia, 2019

Curated by: Ksenija Orelj and Sabina Salamon / Photo credits: Damir Žižić

Fragments I

Where stories cut across the land

2016 - 2018

 

Six channel video installation

Video HD, color, sound

 

This is not a video work about borders. Rather, it is a video work about overcoming the influence of politics on the land within the borders of unrecognized or semi-recognized states. It is a document of the fragmented symptoms of the “Bosnian pot” character of governance, in which all components simultaneously complement and eliminate each other. This unsettling principle of governance, in which elements unable to withstand the pressure collapse, while those that are more powerful survive (and are subsequently absorbed within the system), has been known for many centuries. What this work highlights, are the contrasts and conflicts provoked by contemporary attempts at preserving a semblance of safety within those borders.

 

Much more than a mere cinematographic idea, Fragments I is a series of video documents detailing a journey through specific socio-political pulsars: The Republic of Abkhazia, a state of limited recognition; Varosha, a silent town in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey; through the Field of Blackbirds in the Republic of Kosovo, a state of limited recognition; at the edge of the Tskhinvali region of the Republic of South Ossetia, a partially recognized state; in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic or the Republic of Artsakh, a state unrecognized by any sovereign state; and in Transnistria, or the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, a self-proclaimed, non-recognized, autonomous territorial unit with a special legal status.

Other Installation views:

M14   |   HESTIA   |   MHC

 

 

Texts:

Unsettled: Where the Border Cuts the Land...

by Maja Ćirić

 

Fragments of Searching Thought

by Joerg Franzbecker

 

Vangjush Vellahu

in conversation with Jasmina Metwaly

 

 

Publication:

Fragments I - Were stories cut across the land

 

 

With kind support from:

+Arthur Boskamp Stiftung, Hohenlockstedt, Germany

+Hestia Art Residency & Exhibition Bureau, Belgrade, Serbia

 

 

In Collections at:

EΜΣΤ | National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, GR

 

 

Exhibited partially or fully at:

ZK/U—Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, Berlin, DE

Manifesta 14th Biennial, Prishtina, XK

National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, GR

Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, MK (Screening)

Museu d'Història de Catalunya, Barcelona, ES

Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka, HR

BB11—Bucharest Biennale 11, Bucharest, RO

National Gallery of Arts, Tirane, AL

National Historical Museum, Tirane, AL

Sede Virtual Bienalsur, Buenos Aires, AR

Trade Fair Palace - National Gallery, Prague, CZ

Art Quarter Budapest, HU

Projektraum-Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin, DE

Škuc Gallery, Ljubljana, SI

Museum of Contemporary Art, Acri, IT

Almissa Open Art Festival, Omis, HR

Arthur Boskamp Stiftung, Hohenlockstedt, DE

Hestia Art Residency & Exhibitions Bureau, Belgrade, RS

Tulla Culture Center, Tirane, AL

Transzit, Cluj, RO

Fladernbunker Museum, Kiel, DE

Ostrale Biennale O21, Dresden, DE

Atelierhaus im Anscharpark-Haus 8, Kiel, DE