Illuminated darkness

44th International Theatre Festival MESS Sarajevo

 

Andrej Ðerković is offering to us - as part of his artistic „reading“ and articulation of Sarajevo and Bosnia & Herzegovina - to participate in a „simple recognition of the world around us“. He suggests us to adopt the existing ambiance (existing ambiances) with and „illuminated darkness”- with the lights that contain quite common in all the public spaces, an inscription „exit“. If we adopt this ambiance of darkness and light, if we turn more actively towards the light and the inscription „exit“, we will start communicating somehow with that light. If this communication, this „dialogue“ with the object of the lamp is accepted in the manner of Levinas, we will enter into a dialogue with the object of lamp that „has a face“, the face that is always „the face of the other“. So, it is about the dialogue in which we are „watching the light, the lamp and the inscription” exit“- with the eyes of the other“. This relationship between the object and us „that have the face“ must (according to Levinas) be a kind of moral dialogue. The dialogue that must have an additional explanation in Bosnia- Herzegovina given its historical quest and affirmation of „the other“ - „the one who is me“. How this suggested dialogue could develop further is beyond Andrej Ðerković himself: it is up to every one of us to face „the face of the other“, to „get out of ourselves” in order to find out who e really are. We should enter into a dialogue with those who are „different than me - different than us“. All this in order to make/retrieve/improve the metaphor of Bosnia and its darkness - that is justified or perhaps unjustified one - into a productive, and not innocent projection of our future. Where every „exit“ is actually „return“, or an „entrance“- the way towards our inner self.

 

Dr. Sc. Fehim Hadžimuhamedović, Sarajevo, 2004