The Star-Spangled Banner / 2006

 

On the occasion of the anniversary of the most important date of the siege of Sarajevo, the work “The Star-Spangled Banner” is questioning perception of the human loss in different societies who passed tragic experiences. It is also hommage to the victims of the siege of Sarajevo and the victims of the attacks on WTC in New York. The work is consisting from eight exact plastic airplane models of Boeing 767-223ER American Airlines, the airplane who hit the first tower of the WTC on September 11, 2001. The work is confronting the number of killed sarajevans during the siege with number of the killed passengers on the flight American Airlines A-11 and those killed in the north tower. Through multiplication in the public space, the airplanes are exhibit on the wall simulating the impact of the airplane in the tower and in the same time simulating the impact of the grenades falling on Sarajevo during the siege. Cult pâtisserie Jadranka on Grbavica, with its interior, in this case its wall, and through the name of the American hymn “The Star-Spangled Banner”, is perfectly inserted in the concept of this intervention. The work have task to lead on the confrontation with the existence of those who are not longer with us, against over-dimensioning of the victims, which is metaphor of the impotence in the opposition to the actual representation of the history. The stars, which are visually representing the explosion of the impact, are also contouring another form of this word, in a sense of the “media stars”, who are actually, again those dead, and against any spiritually/religious rapport they aren’t let to rest in peace. On the contrary, in abstract way, they are used, exactly as media-stars towards national-political creating of the history. The goal of the exhibition is also to question those to whom that May 2nd 1992 was at the end, part of their lives: Was it and in which way, this actual (un)conscious adoption/ appropriation of the existing society as the result of the after-war’s different sociological and ideological changes, (un)wanted?

 

The work was primarily presented in Sarajevo, on May 9, 2008 in the book „May 2nd 1992 - It was nice and sunny day...” (International Theatre Festival Mess/Videoarhiv) and one month after in Pavilion Veljković (CZKD) in Belgrade. In 2009, the work was exposed in the frame of the collective exhibition “Art and Terrorism” (curator Irfan Hošić) in City Gallery of Bihać (Bosnia-Herzegovina). In 2010, on invitation of curator Magda Guruli, the work was exposed in Karvasla National Museum in Tbilisi, where it took part of the Museum’s collection. 

 

 

Photo Almin Zrno