Lana Čmajčanin – Geopolitical Zones of the Present/Geopolitičke zone sadašnjosti – Opening of the exhibition on Friday, June 12, at 7 p.m. at the Duplex100m2.
Geopolitical Zones of the Present by Jelena Petrović, 2015
Through centuries, military and political inscriptions of statehood and sovereignty into the landscape of geographic maps have become stagnant strongholds of factual history, fixtures which are never oppugned, in spite of perpetual shifts in the dominant positions of power commissioning their production. Lana Čmajčanin applies the methods of distillation, overlapping and reduction of the content of maps, while utilizing the usual cartographic tools and techniques of etching, drawing, reproduction and representation. The artist thus creates a space which contests the geopolitical historicity of the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from the Roman Empire all the way to the Dayton Agreement.
Lana Čmajčanin’s solo exhibition entitled Geopolitical Zones of the Present includes three spatial installations which, despite their geometrical precision and rootedness in the existing geopolitical, military, didactic and other relevant charts and maps, become blurred locations which undermine universally accepted, yet systematically fabricated, dominant historical truths. The work on these installations, which are interconnected through their engaged investigation of geopolitical space, began with the solo exhibition opened in Ljubljana in November 2014, continued the following month in Rijeka and was finally updated with new engravings and interventions to be displayed at the Sarajevo exhibition which opens on 12 June 2015.
The point in which the artist’s work departs from previous readings and internalisations of geopolitical facts is the installation entitled 551.35 Geometry of Time, which acquaints us with the concept of what might be called geometry of geopolitics. The installation consists of 35 selected maps which defined the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the last 551 years. Overlapping on a lit background, instead of showing distinct and clear borders, these maps evidence their shifts, deviations and instability caused by colonial, imperial, conquering, migrational, martial, as well as ‘peace-keeping’ redesigns. Monumentally conceived with a view to presenting ‘objective’ borders, this installation makes incursion into the geometry of the course of history, since the expected and distinct borders are replaced with a palimpsest of previously subjugated and thus forgotten truths. Palimpsest as a metaphor, transposed from the textual into the domain of visual, calls into question the very linearity of historical time, as well as political and, above all, military strategies of space organisation, thereby highlighting the repetitive patterns of creating (dis)continuous history and cyclicality of historical violence.
Deconstructing this monumental, while simultaneously blurred and illegible installation inscribed with the history of conquests, wars and violence takes us to another thematic assemblage which may be called Geometry of War and Peace. Comprising two sets of glass engravings, this installation testifies to the cartographic representation of history, i.e. charting of borders which here fully coincide. The first set consists of maps filled in with intricate etching marks in line with the patterns used in map legends to designate the locations of military operations. The second set, as a reflection of the first one, includes simplified engravings of linear sketches representing the development of the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina, taken from school textbooks, i.e. didactic maps. The creation of a link between these two contexts, military and educational, sheds light on the mechanisms that normalise the history of violence, as well as on the normative processes of its perpetuation and reiteration. The engravings thus represent deep and resistant inscriptions, as they overlap and mirror one another in the glass, while emphasising what is evident, yet flimsy and fragile.
The third spatial installation transforms previously engraved drawings of the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the silent, blank maps used for didactic purposes in schools, where they are inscribed with different contents in order to check one’s knowledge. Designed as an interactive projection via an overhead projector, the installation recreates the environment of a classroom which, apart from the maps projected from the slide, incorporates modular cubes as cartographic objects which are playfully moved, assembled and disassembled to define and redefine the knowledge of borders. In the sphere of education, which used to be predominantly women’s territory of numerous female history teachers and educators, geopolitical maps are turned into geographical ones, while repetition of their simplified border outlines and general content creates a geometry of knowledge which does not oppose some previously configured geometries, but rather adopts them as absolute truths. This gender dimension of the artist’s work at the same time implies the necessity of transcending gender stereotypes and engaging women politically and socially in mass exposure of the entrenched historical knowledge, and also calls for the acknowledgement of collective responsibility for the construction of reality and its borderlines.
The moment of confrontation in which the borders vanish, or are erased only to be reinvented through the cycles of historical violence, takes us back to some other works by Lana Čmajčanin as it directly evokes the 2011 installation entitled Tailoring and Sewing. This interactive exhibition dictates that borders should be perceived as tailoring patterns in which the demarcated borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina, tailored in line with the Dayton Agreement, may be customised to fit those who eventually use them and live within or without them. In this respect, the approach is an ambivalent one. On the one hand, there is subversive play with a cluster of nationalist, elitist, martial and transitional interests before and after Dayton; on the other, social responsibility for the change of the current situation is upheld. This essentially entails a dialectic approach which actually implores one to leave the field of (post)ideological lethargy and political, economic and social subjugation and enter the domain of resistance and struggle. Through geometrical fissures in time continuum, Geopolitical Zones of the Present makes reference to this earlier work, which makes the intervention on the meanwhile scientifically founded historical factuality both complicated and inevitable, while it once again evokes forceful and creative emancipation through the medium which metaphorically reflects women’s activity.
Making her artistic positions engaged, Lana Čmajčanin introduces into geopolitical mapping a society whose political subjectivity becomes exclusively and necessarily counter-historical. Thereby she penetrates the geopolitical zone of the present, which now does not act from the position of political power and historical knowledge, but rather from the positions which are erased, subjugated, repressed, yet simultaneously unrestrained by the conventional ruling mechanisms of control. In other words, these positions are left out of the administrative, institutional, scientific and legislative apparatus which is ultimately tuned and objectified by the system of education. Thus a host of relations and processes is introduced, by and in which the society is safeguarded and politically subjectified. This demand for safeguarding society can certainly be read in the context of Foucault’s theses, primarily his definition of the term counter-history, but is by no means reduced to this. It further actualises those social relations which, in the process of creating different geopolitical zones of safeguarding society, advocate for the removal of the borders stigmatised and besmirched by the layers of all that social subjugation and exploitation.
Finally, Lana does not only lend us a critical insight into the factually objectified and stagnant history of those who draw up geopolitical borders. She makes visible the ebb and flow of borderlines, which leave in their wake blurred grey zones of overlapping, dissolving and reconfiguring entities which now call for the construction of some new and resistant artistic narratives: the ones of perpetual struggle against the forces which objectify, control and confine us, simultaneously keeping us in the positions of political oppression and social exploitation.
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Geopolitičke zone sadašnjosti
Jelena Petrović, 2015
Vojno-politički upisi državnosti i suvereniteta u geografske pejzaže mapa kroz vjekove postali su statična i najotpornija mjesta faktografske historije koja se nikada ne dovodi u pitanje, uprkos stalnoj promjeni dominantnih pozicija moći sa kojih se te mape iscrtavaju. Lana Čmajčanin sažima, preklapa i svodi sadržaja mapa, koristeći se uobičajnim kartografskim sredstvima i tehnikama graviranja, crtanja, reprodukovanja, te prikazivanja stvara prostor u kome je moguće dovesti u pitanje geopolitičku historizaciju granica Bosne i Hercegovine, počev od Rimskog carstva, pa sve do Dejtonskog sporazuma.
Samostalna izložba Lane Čmajčanin: Geopolitičke zone sadašnjosti obuhvata tri prostorne instalacije koje, uprkos svojoj geometrijskoj preciznosti i arhivskoj utemeljenosti na postojećim geopolitičkim, vojnim, školskim i drugim relevantnim kartama tj. mapama, postaju zamagljena mjesta kojima se narušava opšteprivaćena, te sistemska fabrikacija vladajućih historijskih istina. Rad na ovim instalacijama koje povezuje angažovano propitivanje geopolitičkog prostora započinje samostalnom izložbom u novembru 2014. u Ljubljani, nastavlja se u decembru 2014. u Rijeci i nadograđuje se novim gravurama i zahvatima u okviru izložbe koja se otvara 12. juna 2015. u Sarajevu.
Polazna tačka u postavci rada ili tačka prekida sa prethodnim načinima čitanja i usvajanja geopolitičke faktografije je instalacija 551.35 Geometrija vremena koja nas uvodi u poimanje onoga što bismo mogli da nazovemo geometrija geopolitike. Instalacija sadrži 35 odabranih mapa koje su formirale granice Bosne i Hercegovine tokom protekle 551 godine. Preklopljene jedna preko druge na svjetlećoj podlozi, ove mape, umjesto preciznih i jasnih granica, pokazuju njihova pomjeranja, odstupanja i nestabilnost uslijed kolonijalnih, imperijalnih, osvajačkih, migracijskih, ratnih te isto tako ‘mirotvornih’ preispisivanja. Monumentalno postavljena u nastojanju da pokaže ‘objektivne’ granice, ova instalacija zadire u geometriju historijskog toka, jer se na mjestu očekivanih jasnih granica poput palimpsesta pojavljuju naslage onih istina koje su se u prošlosti potčinjavale i tako zaboravljale. Palimspest, kao metafora prevedena iz tekstualnog u vizualno, dovodi u pitanje, kako linearnost historijskog vremena, tako i političke, prije svega, vojne strategije organizacije prostora, ukazujući na repetativne obrasce stvaranja (dis)kontinuirane historije i cikličnost njenog nasilja.
Raščlanjivanje ove monumentalne i istovremeno zamagljene i nečitke instalacije u koju je upisana historija osvajanja, ratovanja i nasilja vodi nas ka drugoj inskriptivnoj cjelini koju možemo da nazovemo geometrija rata i mira. Svedena na dva seta gravura u staklu, ova instalacija ukazuje na kartografsko bilježenje historije, odnosno, iscrtavanje granica koje se ovog puta u potpunosti preklapaju. S jedne strane, tu su zgusnute gravure koje ispunjavaju prostor unutar granica prema postojećim šablonima legendi koje se koriste za obilježavanje teritorija vojnih operacija, a sa druge strane, kao njihov odraz, postavljene su pojednostavljene gravure linearnih crteža razvoja granica Bosne i Hercegovine, koje su preuzete iz školskih udžbenika, odnosno edukativnih karata. Dovođenjem u vezu ova dva registra, vojnog i edukativnog, postaju vidljivi i mehanizmi normalizacije historije nasilja, te normativni procesi kojima se ono dalje prenosi i ponavlja. Gravure tako predstavljaju duboke i otporne inskripcije, međusobno se preklapaju i oslikavaju u staklu, i istovremeno, upućuju na ono što je očigledno, ali isto tako fragilno i lomljivo.
Treća prostorna instalacija prethodno ugravirane crteže granica Bosne i Hercegovine pretvara u nijeme karte koje se koriste u školama za učenje i postaju poligon za provjeru znanja putem upisivanja određenih sadržaja. Postavljena kao interaktivna projekcija, ova instalacija koristi grafoskop i prostorno predstavlja učionicu u kojoj se pored mapa iscrtanih na foliji nalaze još i modularne kocke, kartografski objekti koji omogućavaju da se nivo znanja o granicama shvati po principu igre njihovih premeštanja, sklapanja i rasklapanja. U pedagoškoj sferi koja je uglavnom bila rezervisana za žene, učiteljice historije i vaspitačice, geopolitičke karte postaju geografske, a ponavljanjem njihovih simplifikovanih granica i osnovnih sadržaja, ispisuje se geometrija znanja, koja ne dovodi u pitanje prethodne ‘geometrije’, već ih usvaja kao apsolutne istine. Ova rodna dimenzija u radu ukazuje na nužnost izlaska iz rodnih stereotipa, te na masovno političko i društveno angažovanje žena u demaskiranju utemeljenog historijskog znanja i istovremeno poziva na kolektivno preuzimanje odgovornosti za kreiranje stvarnosti i njenih granica.
Trenutak suočavanja u kome se granice brišu, gube, ponovo pojavljuju kroz kružne tokove historijskog nasilja, vraća nas na druge radove Lane Čmajčanin, a prije svega direktno povezuje sa instalacijom Krojenje i šivenje iz 2011. godine. Njena interaktivna postavka poziva da se granicama pristupi preko krojačkih šnitova u kojima obilježene granice Bosne i Hercegovine, napravljene po Dejtonskom sporazumu, mogu da se prilagođavaju po mjeri onoga ko ih u krajnjoj instanci upotrebljava i živi. U tom smislu je ovaj postupak ambivalentan. S jedne strane, tu je subverzivno poigravanje spletom nacional-elitističkih, ratnih i tranzicijskih interesa prije i poslije Dejtona, i sa druge strane, afirmacija preuzimanja društvene odogovornosti za promjenu postojećeg stanja. U osnovi dijalektički pristup zapravo poziva da se iz polja (post)ideološke letargije i političko-ekonomske i društene potlačenosti istupi u polje otpora i borbe. Geopolitičke zone sadašnjosti kroz geometrijske pukotine vremena, povezuju nas sa ovim radom koji intervenciju, u sad već znanstvenim aparatom utemeljenu, historijsku faktografiju, čini kompleksnom i istovremeno nužnom, te još jednom ukazuje na borbenu i stvaralačku emancipaciju putem tehinika koje metaforički ukazuju na djelovanje žena.
Angažujući svoje umjetničke pozicije, Lana Čmajčanin uvodi u geopolitičko mapiranje društvo čija politička subjektivacija je jedino i nužno kontra-historijska. Time zadire u geopolitičku zonu sadašnjosti, koja ovog puta nije pozicija političke moći i historijskog znanja, već pozicija onih znanja koja su izbrisana, potčinjena, potisnuta, i istovremeno izvan uobičajenih vladajućih mehanizama kontrole. Drugim riječima, te pozicije su izvan njenog administrativnog, institucionalnog, naučnog i legalizirajućeg aparata, koji se u svojoj krajnjoj instanci uređuje i objektivizira obrazovnim sistemom. Na taj način, Lana Čmajčanin pruža uvid u splet odnosa i procesa kroz koje i u kojima se društvo brani i politički subjektivizira. Zahtjev za odbranom društva može se svakako čitati preko Foucaultovih teza, prije svega one koja definiše pojam kontra-istorije, međutim ne zaustavlja se na tome. Taj zahtjev ide dalje ka aktuelizaciji onih društvenih odnosa koji u procesu stvaranja drugačijih geopolitičkih zona odbrane društva traže oslobađanje od žigosanih granica koje sve te nataložene slojeve društvenog potčinjavanja i eksploatacije sa sobom nose.
Na kraju, Lana nas ne ostavlja samo sa kritičkim uvidom u statički i faktički objektiviziranu historiju onih koji povlače geopolitičke granice, već njena granična pomjeranja čini vidljivim, zamagljenim, sivim zonama, koje se preklapaju, raščlanjuju i ponovo stapaju, ovog puta pozivajući na nove, rezistentne umetničke naracije permanentne borbe sa onim što nas instrumentalizuje, kontroliše, oblikuje, i prije svega, politički ugnjetava i društveno eksploatiše.