[Translate to english:] Wandteppiche von Nevin Aladağ hängen an einer weißen Wand. Auf dem Boden davor liegt ein Mann, nur mit einer schwarzen Hose bekleidet.

From Post-War Trauma to European Co-Existence

22.12.2022

By William Billows

An artistic exploration of the current socio and political climate in Europe, the idea of a European identity and marginalised geopolitical spaces is attempted by the 'EVROVIZION. Crossing Stories and Spaces' exhibition.

The exhibition focuses on less visible and marginalised geopolitical and cultural spaces, in particular in Southeast and Eastern Europe. These‘semi-peripheries’ are places of diversity that are often neglected in international theoretical debates and exhibition practices. For example, the multi-ethnic city of Sarajevo, , where the premiere of EVROVIZION took place in June 2021. The city became a symbol of the disintegration of Yugoslavia. During the war in the 1990s, it experienced an almost four-year siege. Despite the post-war trauma that the city still experiences today, Sarajevo has retained its multicultural diversity. Here, as in other cities, the question of a European identity and the coexistence of different ethnic groups arises again and again.

Photo: Courtesy of the artist

A woman photographs a tapestry with her mobile phone.

Photo: Marko Ergović, © Muzej savremene umetnosti Vojvodine

Interior of a destroyed synagogue. Hebrew characters can be seen on the gable.

C-Print, photo: Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf

A prayer room with two columns and a chandelier. Carpets on the floor, a green curtain in the background.

C-Print, photo: Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf

An empty Muslim prayer room. A prayer niche in the white wall.

C-Print, photo: Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf

White wallpaper with blue, seemingly idyllic motifs. However, they show rapes by soldiers.

Print on textile wallpaper, photo: Courtesy of the artist

Detail of the wallpaper with blue, seemingly idyllic motifs. However, they show rapes by soldiers.

Photo: Courtesy of the artist

Two women in white blouses and black skirts sit on a bed in front of a wallpaper with a beach and palm trees.

Photo poster, photo: Hamza Kulenović, courtesy of the artist

A woman is sitting in front of a carpet. She holds a halved watermelon on her lap.

Video performance, 10’, photo: Dinko Hosić, courtesy of the artistst

A wide view of a landscape. At the end of a road a blue building.

Video installation 14‘50‘‘, recording, editing and sound: Igor Bošnjak, photo: courtesy of the artist

Two exhibition visitors look at the video installation Igor Bošnjak on a monitor lying on the floor.

Installation in Sarajevo

Men with naked torsos and black trousers stand and sit on scaffolding with three levels.

Video performance and installation, Novi Sad, direction: Ivana Ivković, camera: Ivan Zupanc, editing: Vladan Obradović, © Ivana Ivković

Three bare-chested men sit on the ledge of a concrete wall. Discarded equipment in the niche under the ledge.

Video performance and installation, Sarajevo, direction: Ivana Ivković, camera: Ivan Zupanc, editing: Vladan Obradović, © Ivana Ivković

Stacked cubes made of brass. The sculpture of a wild cat made of cow dung peeps out of one of the cubes.

Photo: Courtesy of the artist and ChertLüdde Galerie, Berlin

In the course of its tour, the exhibition will constantly change through intensive interactions with the art scenes of the region and by integrating new artistic positions. The aim is to create an open structure that evolves with current socio-political demands and the impulses of the participating actors. The exhibition thus becomes a collection of diverse stories that are independent and at the same time closely interwoven. Together they form an overall narrative.

EVROVIZION Website