Bosnia and art..?
Heritage, Art, Culture..again and again…every year less of that in my country…
Local elections are behind the corner.. All around Sarajevo you can find wannabe politicians, which are trying to pretend to know marketing and that they know how to give “powerful messages”…
Galleries, Museums.. are closing… we still have festivals.. at same time Festival Mess is shining..and fighting for that piece of culture and art, which still exist in that part of the world…
Tomorrow-organized protest against closure of biggest and old National Museum (Zemaljski muzej) in my country.
http://www.zemaljskimuzej.ba/index-en.php
The National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina was founded in 1888 and is the oldest of the modern cultural and scientific institutions of Western type in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Since the very beginning of its work, the National Museum has developed as a complex cultural and scientific institution fostering a number of scientific and scholarly disciplines, i. e. history, geography, archeology (prehistoric, ancient and medieval), ethnology, history of art and natural history (biology, geology and mineralogy), and to some extent language, literature, statistics and bibliography. Over the years these disciplines have been rationalized into the present three departments: Archeology, Ethnology and Natural History. Since the outset, considerable attention has been paid to the educational and cultural function of the Museum.
This Museum is very much part of my grand mother, my mother, mine history, childhood… We were raised to have deep respect to this kind of places…
I remember last winter…the biggest snowfall in last 100 years..and rare amount of people which are trying to organize lectures and to show protest against everyone who is ignoring fact that this important building is going to be closed..
And one year later, it actually will be closed, it survived World War I and II, it survived war in BH 92-95… It survived everything but not Bosnian government and politics… And Sarajevo Haggadah is also there. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarajevo_Haggadah) book with history character..everywhere else would be protected like Mona Lisa… others are writing books about it.. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_of_the_Book_%28novel%29 ) Back home in Bosnia during many years I was very much involved in many round tables, protest and whatever was organized in order to save, protect or speak in the name of Art and Culture..and how that is important.. Without Art and Culture you don’t have a country, and for me personally means that you hardly have a meaning of life…
Here in USA , I stayed speechless entering and visiting museums.. So far , I am going to be involved and probably do local affiliation in one the most beautiful and very important museum here, Heard Museum… www.heard.org
When you go to their web site, it is colorful, active, it just grab you and you know that you can find so much inside… History, Art, Culture, Education, Theater.. all…and it is very live and active.. people there are happy to give more, to create more, to bring innovation…
and it is a little bit ironic that I am trying to connect in one place all of my professional background, and discovering that for those best places are Museums, Art Galleries, Art Centers.. there you can put together, art , my involvement in Public Relations and Project Management and also fact that I was very much involved in theater life last years.. Yes here all of that connected…
And I am wondering.. When I go back to Bosnia…would I find any art and cultural institution alive any more…?
I would love to say that I believe that upcoming elections are going to change something… But I have huge doubts about that… and just some small hope inside of my heart…
Prvo je zatvoren Muzej Revolucije, ali je napravljen spomenik Hladnom ratu, pa zatvorena Galerija pa sada i Zemaljski Muzej. Izgleda pokusava se svim sredstvima izbrisati istorija ovih multietnickih prostora i zajednistvo njenih naroda-mozda svaka nacionalna stranka da kaze koji su njeni eksponati pa da ih stave u tri Neo Muzeja na teritorijama gdje su se homogenizirali njihovi glasaci…SF-SN!