To forget or not, that is the question?

 

It is been fifteen years now, from the beginning of the Balkan wars, that we, Slovenians fortunately and inexplicably avoid it. With a voice of external observer of the brotherhood carnage on the territory of ex-Yugoslavia - you can hear us saying: What happen, it happen; now we go forward. But the fact is that the war DID happen. It lasted too long, long enough to catch also new generations. Representatives of new Balkan generations were born mostly during the war or they were kids at the beginning of the nineties. It means that the initiatives, like Festival “Days of Sarajevo in Belgrade” are very important and necessary in recognizing and surpassing the traumas. Traumas that can mark deeply someone, witness of violence and fear, at the beginning of its life. Two-day festival was organized on four locations in the center of Belgrade. Festival was followed with exhibition of Bosnian artist Andrej Đerković called “To forget kills”. The exhibition that was shown last years in fifteen European cities is created as a reaction on aggressive campaign against smoking, which on the Balkans, for some time will not gain its purpose. The work is shown for the first time in Sarajevo in the frame of the 10th anniversary of the fall of Srebrenica. Instead o usual squares with notes about danger of smoking, on the cigarette box of DRINA, Đerković printed on three languages note “To forget kills”. First look on the box of legendary DRINA cigarettes is quite shocking. Imagine that every morning with coffee or every day on the tobacco kiosk, you are watching this pack of cigarettes, potem ko je tako rekoc ze vsega konec in je vse kar si zelite, le da so stvari spet take, kot so. On the contrary of conspirative and limited action against smoking, the project of this Bosnian artist is deeply honest and very effective. When you think a little bit more, preventive action against smoking are coming out hypocrite, comparing to the Đerković’s project, whose aim is obviously to keep its own identity. It is whatever in which way, connected to the identity of the community from which you come from.

 

Nina Slokar Boc, Radio Ljubljana, 2007