Balkanising Taxonomy : How to capture and transfer an experience of the event - the case of Belgrade protest in '96/'97

Abstract

The Serbian uprising in 1996/1997 was an attempt to overthrow the dictatorship of president Milosevic after he annulled elections because of the opposition party’s victory. Ashamed by the unsuccessful outcome of their protest, the people of the capital Belgrade, have never produced an archive of the photos, banners and graffiti, which emerged during these demonstrations. Scarce information on the Internet and the inability of the media to reveal the data gathered during the protest has left the public without a full account of the uprising. My project is that archive – the map of images, leaflets, badges, flags, vouchers, cartoons, crochets, poems etc., an online record of the elucidated protest available to the participants, scholars and the public. The narratives of this event have been locked within the community and there are only odd visual references hidden in people’s houses. My research has generated them through interviews and image elicitation that looks at the uprising by analysing these accumulated historic relics. Presented in sections on the website (timelines, artists, routes) and pages of art formats (poems, photos, badges), this overview of the geographical, political and social circumstances within which the protest’s artwork was produced demonstrates how it influenced the actions of the citizens. This urban spectacle was enthused by the creative participation exposed in the walks of the masses that became the force of the protest. The reflexive method of my practice, just like this communal approach at the uprising challenges dominant representations of culture, history and politics from the whole of the Balkans. My online package for capturing the past (hi)stories shifts the official narratives, predominantly from the West and saturated by the wars of the ‘90s into only one possibility among others. It maps the failed revolution in Serbia under Milosevic from its beginnings, revealing the accomplishment of academics, artists and citizens buried under the war stories...