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The exhibition
„Storys from the Vacuum Cleaner“
from a group of young artists from
Serbia and Kosovo which is the final
event of the project „Serbia and
Kosovo: Intercutural Icebreakers“
opened in UK Stari grad in Belgrad.
The exhibition was opened by the
coordinators of the project Luka
Božović from the Helsinki Comittee
for human rights in serbia, Mrs.
Dorotea Gizelman the Deputy
Ambassador of the Federal Republic
of Germany and Mr. Žan Lik Eš the
Deputy Ambassador of Switzerland in
Belgrade. Guests were also addressed
by Adea Pula, one of the artists
from Pristina who participated in
the exhibition.
Luka Božović noted
that this is is the fifth year of
how the Helsinki Comittee for Human
Rights in Serbia is organizing the
project „Serbia and Kosovo:
Intercultural Icebreakers“ which
connects young artists from Serbia
and Kosovo and gives them the
opportunity to meet and collaborate.
He noted that this is precisely the
way and the path to establish good
neighborly relations in the future,
and that without such change and
cooperation, any agreement on the
normalization of relations that the
two political elites would sign
would not have the desired effects.
More than 150 young people have gone
through the program so far. The aim
of the program is to restore old and
develop new connections among young
people from artistic circles, he
added.
Mr. Žan Lik Eš the
Deputy Ambassador of Switzerland in
Belgrade drew the attention to the
importance of dialogue and finding a
common language. He recalled the
experience of multilingual
Switzerland and reaching consensus
in multilingual communities, to
which he was inspired by one of the
works that addresses the issue of
language barriers.
Deputy Ambassador
of the Federal Republic of Germany
Dorote Gizelman told the audience
that the exhibition "Stories from
the Vacuum Cleaner" is proof that
there is a space of freedom and
cooperation that is not behind the
police cordon we saw at a similar
event in the previous days.
The young artists
who participated in the project
"Serbia and Kosovo: Intercultural
Icebreakers", problematized the
various phenomena and social
relationships that they observed
through the program, through their
works. From questions about the role
of women in conflicts, discussions
and narratives about new conflicts,
through the issue of the language
barrier between the two communities.
Some have specified the cases they
are dealing with, and thus, three
artists from Priština, Mitrovica and
Aleksinac addressed the issue of the
role of the bridge in Kosovoska
Mitrovica as a line of division of
the city into Serbian and Albanian
parts. One of the artists from Novi
Sad drew attention to how current
political relations affect people's
lives by presenting administrative
problems that a Serb-Albanian couple
encounters in order to register
their marriage in Serbia. The papers
also addressed the issue of the
image of Kosovo that people create
in relation to others' experiences,
media content or political
narrative, and personal
transformation after their first
visit to Kosovo. One of Priština's
artists dealt with the impact of
Kosovo-Serbia relations on the whole
of Europe, showing how it creates
problems that are reflected in a
broader community of two societies.
The exhibition
included: Adea Pula (Priština),
Sanja Anđelković (Novi Sad), Pajtim
Pasha (Peć), Blond Kavaja
(Mitrovica), Jelisaveta Rapaić
(Beograd), Nina Milivojević
(Beograd), Arife Muji (Priština).
The project
"Serbia and Kosovo: Intercultural
Icebreakers" was supported by the
Embassy of the Federal Republic of
Germany in Belgrade and the Embassy
of Switzerland in Belgrade.
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