THE BLOODIEST PLACE ON BALKAN UNDER SIEGE: Artists send a very important message from Goli otok

The mentioning of Goli Otok, because of the cruelty that happened there to the prisoners, in the past froze the blood in the veins to all the people in Yugoslavia, and after many years, practical use has been found for it. 

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Rough, cold, bare island and its history were the inspiration for artists Sven Stilinovic, Igor Kunduz, Darko Fritz, Zoran Pavelic, Tajci Cekada, Damir Cargonaj Carli, Kati Mijatovic, Igor Grubic and Mia Vesovica.

Visiting artists are part of upcoming exhibitions "Environment memories 2016./2017. - Art as resistance to the repression, "which will consist of works from 25 artists and is designed so that each artist after his visit to the island, will carry out their work seen as a reaction. 

Now in just a few months Goli Otok was visited by numerous artists. The first group in June and July, the second last weekend, and next one is planned for May next year. It's going to result in a joint exhibition at the end of 2017 in Rijeka in MMSU and in Zagreb in Jedinstvo.

Artists working weekend on the island arrived by boat across Lopar on Rab. Three decades since last prisoner set sail off of it. 

Foto: D.Zlojutro

- The prison was closed in 1989. In the first stage it was the only prison for political prisoners. Then, in 1988, it becomes a prison for political prisoners and older juveniles and young adults who committed hard crimes. In the first phase at the time, when the prison was like a concentration camp has been expertly researched, while other one is less known to us - says Darko Bavoljak, president of the association Goli Otok "Ante Zemljar".

For example, an artist Tajci Cekada her short stay on the island summarized in video performance. Her work is a collage of very short, but numerous videos in which the artist recorded her personal intervention on her most interesting locations and short video captured by the technique stop-motion animation.

- When we first step foot on Goli otok, we are welcomed with horror, you can not explain that. In comparison, when you enter a hornet's nest, you walk, you look, you expect, but there are no more hornets. In the end, only the feeling of disgust remains on all the things that were done here, the symbol of pilled up disagreements in the society that still exists - marks Darko Bavoljak.

Kata Mijatović performed a spatial intervention "From the Archives of dreams / Goli Otok". Print of 8 selected texts about dreams in Croatian, English and Italian, from on-line archive project dreams have been put on the wall of the restaurant area of the former complex. The work starts from the assumption that the only space of intimacy and freedom in repressive systems such as Goli Otok could be held only during sleep, in dreams.

Program project at this stage does research documentary and archival materials, by staying on the Goli Otok, meeting with the local community, the works, recording events, performances and site specific. For the last campaign in July, the artists performed their work as part of the International Volunteer Camp, when the horticulture part of the camp was settled, the park in front of the administrative building.

- The artists with their works, performances and installations on the site are sending a message to the places where the crimes were committed should become places of memory, learning and remembering - says Bavoljak.

Foto: Wikipedia/Pokrajac

The desire is to send a message that the victims of Goli Otok needs to be remembered on dignified manner and to commemorate the memory of their artistic actions, and through art to talk about repression.

- By encouraging artists and, indirectly, the audience, we are faced with the past, we draw attention to the victims of totalitarian regimes and provide assistance in defining the content of future protected the area of Goli Otok. Setting the memorial center on the Goli Otok should have a part that will relate to contemporary art - highlights Bavoljak, who is the author of the film "Goli Otok", which thematizes the camp during the conflict of Tito-Stalin from 1949 to 1955.

In June, the island Goli Otok got the degree of preventive protection as associative landscape of Goli Otok. Within three years it is necessary to make a basis conservation for Reconstruction and do what's necessary here to create a base - to establish reverence and order in terms of providing information to those who visit the island.

- There is a subtle connection between the artist and the Goli Otok. And artists often belong to marginalized groups, the company difficult to accept, are undesirable because they want to be a better company. Provocation is good because it encourages the confrontation with a different opinion, something that is with us is still taboo - concludes Bavoljak.

A documentary about Goli Otok from Darko Bavoljak can be seen here:

(Telegraf.co.uk /source: jutarnji.hr)