Izložbu Land of Mine umjetnice Irene Pejčić, Galerija Vagon realizuje u saradnji sa Organizacijom UDAS.
In Land of Mine, Irena Pejčić contemplates lost parts of ourselves – lost flesh, lost stories, lost home, lost freedom, lost identity, lost solidarity – and the phantom pain they leave behind. The project set out to explore how landmines in Bosnia and Herzegovina limit the freedom of movement – a basic human right – even decades after the war. The research included conversations with several NGOs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Austria (Norwegian People’s Aid BiH, Posavina Bez Mina, Amputee Association UDAS Banja Luka, Gemeinsam Gegen Landminen Austria) and a visit to a cleared minefield with the crew who worked on clearing it. For many of us who grew up in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, the restricted freedom of movement due to landmines was normalized to the point of becoming an inside joke. In contrast, Pejčić grew up in Austria, where hiking in the woods is a national pastime and one of the most cherished childhood memories. In Land of Mine, she highlights all that was taken away from the children of Bosnia and Herzegovina for generations to come and reminds us that we must never accept the normalizing of landmines. In the research process, Irena met people on both sides of the war who themselves planted landmines as soldiers, some of them in her own family. Some joined mine clearing organizations after the war to atone for what they perceive as an unforgivable sin. Others show no remorse even with decades of hindsight. The film tells the stories of nine landmine survivors from the Amputee Association UDAS (Banja Luka), to amplify the marginalized voices of those most affected by the last war’s tragic legacy. The artist casts their residual limbs into a series of gypsum sculptures, inviting the audience to find beauty and inspiration in the uniqueness and resilience of the human body. The phantom pain they feel in the lost parts of their bodies becomes a metaphor for the parts of herself she lost as a child refugee. This phantom pain is unique to the experience of child refugees – invisible to their societies of origin and settlement alike. While emigration can otherwise be a form of agency, in their biographies it is associated with a loss of control and self-determination, often as a first traumatizing memory. They were too young to understand or remember the loss of their home(land), but live with the painful connection to something that no longer exists and can never be truly replaced. Land of Mine tells personal stories but they speak of our collective, Bosnian losses, which most of us turn away from – the same way we look away from people who have lost parts of their bodies. Irena pours gypsum into the casts of the UDAS members’ residual limbs and along with it her childhood experiences as a daughter of a double-amputee father; as a granddaughter who was never allowed to play in the forest around her returnee grandparents’ house for fear of landmines. On the one hand, she pours out painful memories of Othering, experienced by most disabled people and their families worldwide, even in the most ‘developed’ societies. On the other hand, these sculptures beam with inspiration and awe at her father’s and other amputees’ resilience. Suspended in the air – like the artist’s hopes for a more connected Bosnian society – they whisper: We all have lost something, but our losses can turn us into works of art if we are brave enough to let them.
Jelena Jokić-Bornstein
Kustoskinja postavke: Isidora Branković
