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| The Artist and War. A Tale from Bosnia Andris Vītoliņš This story is about Alma Suljević, born in 1963. The first evening we arrived in Sarajevo, we attended an event within the "Barrack" project, and that's where we met Alma. In the following week, we often called each other and went out for coffee. Drinking coffee with Alma means five to seven hours of unremitting conversation. Time has no meaning, and the only thing that ends our conversations is exhaustion and the closing of the café. Alma Suljević is a multimedia artist who has studied philosophy and sculpture. Nowadays she's a lecturer at Sarajevo Art Academy. She's participated in many internationally-known exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale. Alma completed her studies just at the outbreak of war in 1991. After graduating, she worked in her chosen field for a short time and then volunteered for the Bosnia and Herzegovina Army. This was an unusual battalion: in parallel with warfare, it engaged in cultural and entertainment activities. In Sarajevo, I was introduced to several intellectuals who had fought side by side. Translators, poets, actors and artists, all from the same unit. They spent the whole of the blockade within the besieged town of Sarajevo. | |
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It's a sunny day in late 2005, and we're drinking coffee with Alma Suljević again. Suddenly, Alma grows restless, saying we must go and see a sculpture of hers. She's going to show it to some German curator. And we just have to come along, since at other times it's inaccessible. We drive through the whole town by car and reach the gates of the tram depot, which is guarded and has a no-nonsense security pass system. Alma starts bombarding the security guards with stories about foreigners, about her work of art, etc. The men are afraid to make a decision: they try to get hold of their superiors, who are not present. However, a few minutes later, we're already making our way between the tramcars. The depot is full of old Czech and German trams donated by Western Europe. The cars to be repaired have been shunted into the furthest corner. Parked between them is the sculpture: a battle between centaurs and horses, welded together of steel mesh on a cut-down tramcar body. The sculpture itself is like a tram, so it can drive out into the streets. Alma tells the story. In 1994, when Sarajevo was already surrounded, mass shooting of civilians began. Serbian snipers had taken up position on the hilltops around the town. Alma knew some people fighting on the other side, who told her that the snipers were most infuriated by the tram. At that time, Sarajevo was empty, because the people were in hiding. There was grass growing on the tramlines because there was no traffic. Alma had the idea of creating a ghostly tramcar that would run through this ghostly landscape. The town stretches along a valley, running along the whole length of which is a tramline, with various branch lines. This line is visible from almost all the hilltops. When the tram runs, they all take shots at it. At the beginning of the war, there had even been a special armoured tramcar for transporting people. Alma succeeded in obtaining support for her idea from the military leaders of the Bosnian and UN forces. A tramcar was obtained and welding equipment was provided by UNPROFOR. Every day she walked through the whole town, two hours each way, to the site where they were building this tramcar. Soldiers from both the Bosnian and UN forces were detailed as assistants. The army officers might be regarded as the curators... Putting their forces together and avoiding the snipers' bullets, they built this tram sculpture. The work of art went out into the streets. The enemy could watch it through their sights, and if they wished, they could shoot at it. The work of art was not very vulnerable to bullet damage, since it was made of metal mesh, so most of the bullets went straight through. Only the base could be riddled with holes, but this does not do much damage to a metal platform. Sarajevo was under siege for four years, and all this time active cultural life continued. There were concerts and theatre performances. There were even soldiers who fought during the day and in the evenings went back to act in the theatre or musical ensemble. After a war people change. Earlier Alma had worked a lot with metal and created actual sculptures, but nowadays she's become much more political. All of her works and activities are connected with the wartime and post-war events. Thus, in Italy she created a performance in a market. Dressed as a Catholic nun, Alma traded earth from the Bosnian minefields. After a while, old Italian ladies from the area gathered around here to obtain her blessing. The curator of the event explained to the assembled people that this was an art event and that Alma was no nun, a Moslem in fact. This did not alarm the locals: the Moslem posing as a nun blessed the Italians, and the earth from the minefields ended up in flowerpots in their apartments. In her activities, Alma criticises politicians and the demagogy directed against Islam. Alma recalls those crippled in war, and brings up Iraq, Chechnya and other world hotspots. She's an active participant in Sarajevo cultural life and is proud of being an East European. Many Bosnian artists have emigrated and have successfully entered world art life, but Alma is not about to leave Sarajevo. She's ready to struggle with post-war poverty and wait for the Brussels bureaucrats to open the borders so that people can travel without visas. | |
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