HYSTERESIS
Through a reflection on the Partisan Memorial in Mostar by the visionary architect Bogdan Bogdanović, Hysteresis focuses of the gap between the attempt of building an ideal space of dialogue, remembrance and inclusion in Mostar and the real events occurring in that space since the sixties.
One of Bogdanović’s most extensive projects, the cemetery honours Partisans from the region around the city of Mostar that were killed in World War II. After being restored in the mid-2000s, the cemetery subdued renewed vandalism and neglect. Another restoration of the complex is underway, and so, in the passage of time, the complex has gone through a cycle of destruction and then restoration; losing some of its original material and with it, event after event, some atoms of its authenticity.
Hysteresis: Phenomenon, whereby the instantaneous value of a quantity that is determined by another depends not only on its value at the same time, but also on the values it has had in previous instants.
Also hysteresis describes a loop, which at every turn looses energy converging to a final collapse, which here, as metaphor, describes also the phenomenon of actions performed again and again, in order to recover progressively from a collective trauma, while the object used for the ritual is depleted.
Two empty bases whose measures are in relation to the size of the pavilion at Villa Romana. The relation between artwork and the space it is placed refers to Bogdan Bogdanović’s attempt to echo the „essence of the city“ of Mostar. On the back of both the bases there is a squared niche containing a photo of the memorial - on one base straight, on the other mirrored. The empty bases are black. It is a colour that, in my work, refers to an absence, a void; the low height encourages to climb on the platform. Standing on its raised surface, the viewer is immediately in the position of the participant, which I believe is the essence of Bogdanović’s memorial architecture.
On the glass of the pavilion, around the bases, there are three texts in black letters. The first one contains fragments of Bogdanović’s writings and his reactions to the madness of war. The second text is the artist’s vision of the duality that Mostar’s memorial embodies, and as a consequence there is tension created between two poles. The third is the socio-cultural context analysed by researcher Sarah Sajn.
First cloud/column: Eva Sauer
Mostar's Partisan Memorial is a cemetery, and yet a place where life has been conceived in the shadow of the trees
It is a monument that does not resemble a monument
It is a communist memorial but has no symbols that can be linked to any political propaganda
It is a memorial, yet it reflects actual struggles
Like Penelope's woven fabric, the memorial is incumbent upon constant renewal
It is a place of freedom and therefore holds within various and contrasting expressions of freedom
Second: Bogdanovic/Fragments
The architect is a creator of illusions
Everything has already been invented. Everything finds its place.
The play is a thought, and the thought is a happening. Where people do not know how to play, they cannot create their cities and their spaces.
The toy called the city was cruelly shattered, and my game lost life and meaning
Which is the ornament and the discerning world behind the ruins of Vukovar, Sarajevo, Mostar?’
A world without monuments would be better than one where monuments are needed
Third (Sarah Sajn)
Monuments express a political will of memory
Memory politics tells us more about politics than about memory
Re-writing of history helped to legitimize the break-up of the Yugoslav federation and to naturalize new national borders
The destruction of the memory of the shared space was a central objective of the war
Memory politics can be the continuation of the war by other means
The social significance of the monuments dedicated to the antifascist struggle has
been eroded by the radical change of the political context
Can any person, any policy or monument shape people's memory?
Can we expect, from a monument erected for the glory of a destroyed country, to create what the existence of what the new system is continuously denying?
