International travelling exhibition
On view: from June 13 to August 18, 2019
The Zidovi/Walls exhibition is part of the international project Observing Walls: 1989–2019. The project focuses on the walls in Europe today – understood as a physical reality and as symbols of division in divided cities: Berlin, Gorizia/Nova Gorica, and Sarajevo. These cities were selected based on their unique experience with walls, borders, and divisions of space. The once-divided city of Berlin is an example of how we may approach our past in a constructive way to deal with the legacy of past trauma. Gorizia, often wrongly referred to as “little Berlin” in the media, lost a significant part of its suburban areas and citizens in 1947, when the new border line was drawn between Yugoslavia and Italy. In 2004, when Slovenia joined the European Union, the square between the two cities became the site of celebration of the symbolic unity of the two parts of Europe. Titles such as “The Last Wall of Europe has Fallen” spoke of a new Europe, a Europe of peace and unity. New invisible borders that came into existence after the dissolution of Yugoslavia divided the multicultural city of Sarajevo. Newly-built walls remained and shaped the meanings of the ideas of freedom and democracy.
Based on the idea that we cannot create a better future without critical thinking and multi-layered remembrance of the past, the project offers a significant insight into the understanding of freedom, democracy, and divisions, especially in the historic years of 1989 and 2004. Focusing on the stories of the past and the heritage of contested memories, we ask ourselves where the walls between us truly are, and how we may transform these walls of division into bridges of integration.
Project partners: National Museum of Contemporary History (Slovenia), Beletrina Academic Press (Slovenia), Berlin Wall Foundation (Germany), History Museum BiH (Bosnia and Herzegovina), MMC RTV SLO (Slovenia), Quarantasettezeroquattro (Italy)
