Encumbered Memo´s for Bosnia (Sarajevo Festival Winter 2008)

Encumbered Memo´s for Bosnia - Sarajevo 2008
Paul Donker Duyvis

This project is part of XXIV International Festival Sarajevo, Winter 7.2. - 21.3. 2008. Visual Identity:

Barricades Without Borders- New (Brave) World

The theme „Barricades Without Borders- New (Brave) World" opens up the question of dialogue between different generations which participated, each in their own way, in creating a new world while destroying the barricades between their dreams, their goals and the world which surrounds them and in which they live. Every generation is confronted with the same experience: that in front and behind them stand barricades without borders. The creation of a new world means life in a "brave world...

Going to Bosnia and Sarajevo as an invited Artist for the Festival 2008 makes me aware of a deep but hidden feeling of collective guilt about what happened in Srebrenica. The Srebrenica Genocide, was the July 1995 killing of an estimated 8,000 Bosnian boys and men, who were supposed to be fully protected by the Dutch Army and the UN troops. But the International Organisations let the Massacre happen in front of their eyes.

The Srebrenica massacre is the largest mass murder in Europe since World War II. Theodor Meron: By seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims [Bosniaks], the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the forty thousand Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of the Bosnian Muslims in general. They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity.

February 2008 Sarajevo

10 Conversations with Bosnians about a sad and shameful memory:
Sebrenica and Dutchbat.
To be clear: the Srebrenica massacre: " Dutch soldiers let 300 Muslims die"  as the Newspaper the Guardian stated.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/28/dutch-soldiers-let-300-muslims-die-in-bosnian-war-court-rules
All conversations -part of my contribution to Sarajevo Winter festival 2008- were private, not recorded, very emotional, and witnessed by Hungarian artist Jozsef Biro.


All Bosnian people I met, hold Whole Europe responsible for this massacre,
and do not only blame the small Dutch group of soldiers, who did not get any help from other UN troops. In their eyes whole Europe was guilty.
After each conversation I asked o donate me a small object to use in my Installation in the Turkish Cultural Center: "Encumbered Memo"s"

The Memo´s for Bosnia were daily Ceremonies, Performances, Installations, Meditations and Conversations with the Public about the recent war done at different historical locations in the Public Domain of Sarajevo: The Market, The main Mosque, the Synagogue, the Old Orthodox Church and the Turkish Cultural Center.
This project was part of the Exhibition “Encumbered” by Nine Dragon Heads Artists group, curated by Park Byoung Uk in Turkish Cultural Center, 6-11 February 2008 Sarajevo

I am still working to finish my Sarajevo project.
For me it was quite emotional.
It affected me a lot...

Thanks:
- Park Byoung Uk - Curator
- Nine Dragon Heads Foundation
- Denizhan Ozer and Yula Shin (additional photography)
- Gordana Andelic and Biró József
- Yoko Kajio for inviting me to make a painting for her
- Mr. Wadja, Priest of the Old Orthodox Church Sarajevo

- and all the anonymous persons who participated in my project by telling me their private and emotional stories. Each story is symbolised by their small gifts for the Memo Installations in Sarajevo.
None of the meetings and conversations were recorded on audio, video or photo for reasons of intimacy and integrity.

- Barricades Without Borders- New (Brave) World
XXIV INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL SARAJEVO 7.2. - 21.3. 2008

- Turkish Cultural Center Sarajevo