19 Oct FIERY GREETINGS, 2015
Fiery Greetings, installation view, Museum of Yugoslavia, 2015
Fiery Greetings, installation view, Museum of Yugoslavia, 2015
Fiery Greetings, installation view, Museum of Yugoslavia, 2015
Fiery Greetings, installation view, Museum of Yugoslavia, 2015
Six channel digital slide projection with sound
(181 photographs and texts from photo-albums sent to Josip Broz Tito from 1945 till 1980 from the archive of the Museum of Yugoslavia, Belgrade. Voice over: Stevan Bajski, Pavle Kaucki, Ema Kostić, Tara Radulović)
Starting from 1945 numerous schools and children organizations from around Yugoslavia were sending photo-albums to president Tito. Most of the albums share a similar dramaturgy, and they contain similar images. Likewise, many albums contain captions and dedications that are usually written in the first-person plural through which children, together with their teachers, explain what are they doing and what do they think about their life and obligations. Written in a span of more than 40 years, these captions, like photographs, as well are very similar. Characteristic sentences following the photographs are: “The first task we have is to learn”, “We are discovering the secrets of life”, “We will bring light to the cities and villages”, “We are diligent and everything will shine”, “We are young generation that grew out of powerful struggle of our people who gained their freedom alone”, “We are the future protectors of socialism”. Those and similar sentences could be found in the poems and literary works generations of Yugoslav children wrote in schools, listened to during the school celebrations or recited on numerous manifestations. As photographs, sentences that follow them render very specific historical moment and the country in which they were created. Also, in number of ways they witness about the modernization project that has never finished, future that never happened. Slightly edited, some of the original sentences from the albums were incorporated in the installation as a voice over for the installation, again declared by children of a similar age to those depicted in the photographs from the archive.