Protest art and culture actions in South Eastern Europe

By Robert Alagjozovski, Skopje Macedonia

The transitional, post-communist societies in South Eastern Europe although already part of European Union (Romania, Bulgaria), at its doors (Croatia) or in a enlargement prospects (2020) are still suffering from different socio-political maladies. The non-democratic tendencies are coming and going constantly, with the change of the governments, and the democratic institutions or socio-political values are still not built enough to secure the sustainable development of the system. The most hard of these maladies, are authoritarian style of the rule, corruption, nationalism, megalomania, control over media, lack of transparency, non-participatory and non-responsive authorities, avoiding the established rules and procedures. In such an ambience, the progressive and critical communities, whose voice cannot be heard through the regular institutional or public channels choose the street, or nowadays, the social media (facebook, twitter, blogs) as their public space for expressing their views. In a situation where participation of the citizens is excluded from the governmental practices we face the protest art and cultural actions against the authorities as a radical form of the strife for participation. If you are not invited or not allowed to take part in the projects concerning your interests than you install yourself into the process by protest forms, appealing for your voice to be heard. So this is why I would regard the protest art as a radical form of participatory projects. The first creative way of such actions in the region was the protests against the authoritarian rule of Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian dictator, in the 1990. For days, students, artists, intellectuals, NGOs, more or less formal groups were using different forms of creativity and art and cultural formats to voice their disagreement with the policies. Posters, installations, conceptual performances, small plays where staged on the streets to express better, more vivid and more creatively their stances. In 2009 in Bulgaria, which was going through another wave of corruption and crime, the dancers from the Sofia Dance week got out on the streets to use the dance as a form of protest and getting public attention to the actual catastrophes in the social and political life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=W3sAKbxo1NE#! Since 2006 in Croatia, a group which was called Right to (have) the city protested against the city authorities in Zagreb and their blatant neoliberal usurpation of the public space, and turning public buildings or rest areas into shopping centers, garages, office space and housing buildings. The success of the street actions which are against using the artistic and cultural formats was so big, that their turned into a mass movement, and manage to create few NGO centers and festivals out of that. Subversive festival is one example where the subversiveness as such has been institutionalized and nurtured in several days festival with

strong international cooperation, with excellent artists and intellectuals participating, and with relatively huge support from the donors.

http://www.subversivefestival.com/

In Skopje, Macedonia, the booming of protest forms of art started in 2009, soon after the Government revealed its big project Skopje 2014. It affects the central core of the city, totally changing its shape, building new museums, government offices, in neobaroque and neo-classical style, with dozens of monuments, sculptures and other objects, changing the Socialist/modernist phasades of the existing building, thus creating new style quartier in the center. The project was brought without any public debate and soon it started its realization. Three years later, the project is almost finished, eating several time more funds than planned and provoking huge revolt among the intellectual ellite and public.

One of the first protests was the First Architectural Uprising performed by the group Archibrigade, made by students from the Faculty of Archeology, who protested against building new religious objects in the previously secular central space. But their protest ended with them being attacked by the contra-protesters, hooligans and conservative supporters, which is also an established authoritarian trick to organize contra-protesters instead of sending the police on the protesters. Thus police is actually dividing the mob, and can direct the outcome by manipulating with their unbalanced treatment of the two groups. Archibrigade than change its tactics and established more institutional way of acting. They organized the project on the highlights of Skopje Modernist heritage, than alternative urban plan for the river quay etc.

http://pab.blog.mk/ A sole artistic form of protest were the photoshop interventions of the visual artistMatej Bogdanovski, who organize two exhibitions: Uber sculptures and Skopje you will rise in joy again. He used the photographies of the actual buildings and intervened in it. In the series Uber sculptures, he over exaggerated the already exaggerated but pleading to be accepted as normal, governmental sculptures and monuments. Thus he calls the citizens to pay attention better to what is going on in reality. In a similar fashion in the series Skopje you will rise in joy again he added new elements around the monuments, inserted popular characters, drew sci-fi and other popular culture spots among the seriousness of the kitchy sculptures thus revolting through the act of carnevalization. https://www.facebook.com/matej.bogdanovski/photos_stream Another form of protest art was the Two million worth live bodies bridge fence performed by ad hoc group of protesters and activists. When the media announced the new fence over a bridge, done in carved metal&wire would cost two million euros, they estimated that one

hundred unemployed young people can live for twenty years of this money, if everyone is paid 200 euros per month which is the average wage in the low labor work. So they made a live fence, a sculpture of 100 intertwined bodies over the bridge and they were ready to do it for the rest of their lives in three shifts a day.

https://secure.flickr.com/photos/vldmrk/sets/72157629706455992/

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/109477641876655278188/albums/5755757479992349409