INSTALLATION AT 18th STREET ARTS CENTER SANTA MONICA, USA / 2008



for the event of opening of the exhibition «War as the Way of Life» I have decided to create a work that will reflect some of my views on subjects such as war

I didn't want to make work that speaks directly about the horrors of war; killing, dying, sorrow and pain

for me the most terrifying things are the way people are convinced to hate each other; how the intolerance grows, what the consequences are and how deeply those things remain in your life

mechanisms which are used to reach this goal are almost always the same and with my work I wanted to point some of them



IN HOC SIGNO VINCES (The Flag) / 2008

Latin- In This Sign You Shall Conquer

aluminum foil, 190 x 120 cm



one of the first things is creating the national unity, raising pride and sense of glory, belonging to a specific group, nationality, population

in this case I used the flag as a mark of belonging

we identify with a nationalistic icon, it becomes your trademark; by being born in certain place we assume identity of it

I created a metal, anonymous flag, it can be any flag of the world
you can identify with it

by assuming one particular identity you are expected to reject any other
the title is in Latin, and this phrase was used during the Crusades wars, when the Christians fought against the Muslims (the infidels ones)

no mater what the cause, you are supposed to act as expected


LULLABY / 2008
power horns, sound, 51 min, loop


raising the feeling of belonging is subject of this work

I used National anthems that are played one after another

I also made a choice of the words from these anthems, extracting only beautiful words such as love, freedom, liberty, happiness, glory

those words are supposed to make us more aware of our identity

the choice of National anthems that I used for this work are: only anthems of those countries that had war or arm conflict from 1990 till now

I decided to use year 1990 as a point of departure (same year the Berlin wall was destroyed, time when we celebrated the end of Cold War, year that was supposed to be start of new era, peace era)

fact: from 1945- 1989 there were 114 war conflicts in the world, from 1990 until now we had 70 and 32 are ongoing (by Wikipedia)

number of wars, in post- Cold War period is doubled

how wrong we were



PURIFICATION / 2008
aluminum foil, cans, straws, cardboard, led light



another step that happen is extraction of every non wanted element

after extraction we try to get rid of them

everyone who is different is unwanted (by race, colour, religion, or someone that think different, intellectuals, dissidents...)

for this work I created showers

instead of water you have rays of light that «illuminate», «purify» you

the setting evokes Nazi Concentration Camps, where instead of water, gas was used



SAFE FROM HARM / 2008


aluminum foil, tape



a fence is surrounding you

after all these beautiful things that are promised (love, happiness, freedom...)
you are in the ambiance that limits you

closed, trapped
limits are both intellectual and personal

lack of basic freedom, lack of choice

by the promise of keeping you safe and protected you are controlled, imprisoned


I have used everyday materials to create works
those that you can buy in every grocery store. In this way I wanted to show how much these manipulation is infected and part of our life; how the things such as hate, intolerance, non- understanding are becoming a way of life

No comments:

Post a Comment