ACROSS THE POND
Irena Eden & Stijn Lernout

The function of memory is to implement what has been left from the past into future, which without it would appear as a big emptiness. [...] But its bigger and major function persists of preparing the future. (1)

Background:

Migration and Exile design a living that is per se transnational. They characterize ways of contemporary thinking, by bearing down limitations and opening up to new spaces.

By way of transnational living, migrants achieve and create „their spaces“ which are defined, bordered and/ or broaden by themselves. These spaces are strongly associated to the aspect of memory. This mental space accompanies the process of migration and the adaptation of new spaces for living.

Memory is the bridge between past, present and now. One could maybe describe it as to be a transit or living space which passes through. This space is not visible in the initial stage. Here is where the project is set. It wants to visualize parts of this space and thereby characterize linked processes of adaptation of urban space on the example of the city of St. Louis, MO, USA.

In the south of the city the district „Bevo“ has radically changed by the influence of migrants from Bosnia and Herzegowina. The IOM (International Organization for Migration) had organized the emigration of the first families who came to St. Louis in 1993. The district „Bevo“ was characterized by empty abandoned houses and bad infrastructure. Ignoring this hindered situations people settled in „Bevo“ attracted by low rents and living costs. More migrants came, from Bosnia and Herzegowina, or via Germany, as they had to leave the country in the 1990 ́s. Meanwhile people from other states in the US have also moved to St. Louis and formed an „inner” U.S. migration.

An estimated number of 60.000 to 70.000 Bosnian live in St. Louis today. With that number, St. Louis is the biggest bosnian community outside of Bosnia and Herzegowina. You can find bosnian stores, restaurants, cafés, cultural centers, mosques and even a bosnian trade commission in St. Louis. By means of economics the district „Bevo“ has blossomed since the early 1990 ́s and has changed from a former run down into a vivid, well-known and distinguished district which is called „little bosnia“ since.

The migrants life that has located itself within the city is inevitable marked by memory of Bosnia. Our project aims to follow the hint of memory. What concise memory is transported into presence? Which new look is given through the shift of perspective on the city of St. Louis, which on the left behind city or town in Bosnia, from where memory is generated?
Out of these questions we are interested in forms of memory, „verbal drawings“, „fetish“, „pictures“. The research will first take place in Sarajevo. We conscious decided to start our research in the country out of which the memory has been formed. Here we will interview people on how they are connected, personally, job-related, etc. to people in St. Louis. These connections will form a network of memory.

Method:

The research will take place in the public urban space of Sarajevo and the virtual space of the world wide web which is uncoupled from locality. We will get in contact with the people on the street of Sarajevo, but we will multiply by adverting the project in radio, newspapers and also research the internet via google, facebook, diaspora, netlogg etc.

During the time of the exhibition at Duplex we will have a vivid lab-like situation arranged which will show a concentrated picture of memory. By collecting forms, photographs, videos and interviews, the aim will be to create a pool of data. This pool will be integral part of an interactive website which will be designed and set up simultaneously and which will be an archive and collection of memory.

The design of this website will be based on the method of mapping. For this reason, all collected contributions and data will be marked on a virtual map (google maps). By pointing out these „needles”, the contributions on the social networks will appear spacial.

Strategies of mapping that have recently been introduced in projects related to the arts may be described as a process of collective strategic organization of information data and are based on a critical reflected relation towards cartography and its design techniques. ...If the construction process of cartography is not predominance, mapping can consolidate aspects of information, knowledge and lore from different disciplines. The construction design applied within the view of cartography beyond a definite perspective allows to include and translate contents and experience of different actors onto one level, to re-sequence and perform in contemporary settings and constellations. Mapping is primarily interesting as a specific analytic strategy or a technique of analysis. The continuation of arranging information, directions and stories by collating sequences, layers and networks, categorizations, emphasis and its proportions allows new forms in bringing incidence and coincidence to mind. (2)
Mapping gets along with a plea for working on new, outer academic and trans disciplinary strategies and forms of learning and sharing knowledge in networks. (3)

The “work in progress” project with the public implicated will be accomplished during the “sarajevska zima” festival in february 2011 at the art center DUPLEX.

To the opening reception of the festival, the project will be visible at DUPLEX as an empty display architecture designed for the archive to be build. During the festival month the research will be completed and the archive will concentrate day by day.
The results of the research will be added to the interactive web-based archive that will be beamed onto the display architecture to also illuminate it and fill it with content. Intense advertisement and intercession may hopefully achieve a broad public involvement.

Besides the sketched display, an office-like situation will allow people to copy, print, research and file pictures, ideas, maps or photographs and insert these to the archive.

A finissage at the and of the “sarajevska zima” festival will celebrate the closure of the research period and the lab. The website will than be an interactive vivid memory-pool.

(1) Jean-Ives Tadié, Le Sens de la mémoire (mit Marc Tadié), Gallimard, 1999
(2) Peter Spillmann, Labor k3000 / Grenzregime, Hg.Sabine Hess u. Bernd Kasparek, 2010, S. 283 / 284 3
(3) Ebenda, S. 281

PHOTO

-



PRESS

LINKS

www.eden-lernout.com
www.sarajevskazima.ba
www.across-the-pond.info