Belgrade Heartbeat

Belgrade Heartbeat Anja Foerschner Marta Jovanović, Ljubav, performance at the Residence of the Swiss Embassy, Belgrade, Serbia, June 20, 2016. he declaration of Slovenia to leave the Yugoslav federation on June 25, 1991, set in motion a series of conflicts, protests, displacements, and mass Texecutions that would dominate the Balkans for the next eight years. The ensuing refugee crisis turned out to be the worst in European history since the end of World War II. The people who fled their homes during the Bosnian wars between 1992 and 1995 alone numbered 2.7 million. The war grew out of century-old ethnic and religious convictions, intensified by the artificial unifica- tion of the region under the construct of Yugoslavia. This historical event finds resonance in the present day, as thousands of refugees from war-torn countries hope to find a better life along their strenuous and often dangerous trek north. The Balkans served as one of the main routes until it was shut down in March 2016, leaving millions of people stranded at its southern end. It is impossible to disentangle the numerous threads of political, historical, religious, ethnic, and cultural claims that are at the bottom of the countless conflicts that have ravaged the Balkans for centuries and still account for its politically complex character. In Serbia, often painted as the culprit for the bloodsheds of the 1990s, the aftershocks of the wars continue to be felt in a lingering sense of injustice, victimization, and strong ties with history. These memories become physically manifest when driving up Kneza Miloša, one of the main thorough- fares in Belgrade, which offers startling sights of bombed-out buildings amidst numerous diplomatic missions of countries from all over the globe. These ruins, baring their ruptured interior, serve as vivid reminders of the war while making a clear statement of the conviction of most Serbs that they have been wronged not only by their neighbors, but also by the international military alliance. The NATO bombardment of Belgrade lasted from March 24 to June 10, 1999, continu- ing for seventy-eight days, and resulted in the destruction of numerous buildings as well as claiming approximately five hundred civilian lives. 46 PAJ 115 (2017), pp. 46–52. © 2017 Performing Arts Journal, Inc. doi:10.1162/PAJJ_a_00350 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00350 by guest on 24 September 2021 Even though the moral fine print behind the decision to leave the ruins visible in the city as accusatory monuments might be debatable, the act itself is not: too often is the physical damage of past conflicts hurriedly removed, rectified, or replaced with new or provisional constructions. The memory of war, especially that of human suffering, is often erased faster than it should be as physical reminders of the past are eliminated and confined to abstract knowledge drawn from history books. In the middle of these war-torn years, Benoit Junod, Swiss Ambassador to Belgrade in the mid-1990s, decided to build a monument of peace to stand as a reminder of the human cost of war. After moving into the residency of the Swiss Ambas- sador in Senjak, Belgrade, in 1993, he started to redesign the property’s garden, incorporating numerous references to the histories of political conflicts, especially the present situation in the Balkans. On the columns of a pagoda, situated in a small maze in the garden, one can read “War” and “Peace” in Cyrillic, along with statues and busts and carefully selected flowers and trees. Junod wanted to capture the war in all its sensual components, especially sounds and smells, in order to create a more comprehensive and intimate image of its destructive force. Layers upon layers of meaning can be found in the garden, which stretch beyond the immediate political context to more general reflections on war and peace, love and hate, attraction and repulsion, victory and loss. These binaries were at the core of Marta Jovanovic´’s Ljubav, a performance which took place in this garden at the invitation of the current ambassador, Jean-Daniel Ruch. The performance revived the memory of the years of bloodshed in former Yugoslavia, while at the same time constituting a way for the artist to come to terms with the wars in her own personal life. The performance reflected on the binaries of love and hate, peace and war, lust and pain, which, even though dia- metrically opposed, are in fact inextricably linked and determine our everyday relationships whether personal, professional, or political. In Ljubav, these binaries were symbolized by raw pig hearts that the audience was prompted to throw at Jovanovic´ throughout the performance. Upon entering the garden, visitors were greeted by the artist, who wore a long white dress, appearing unnaturally tall on a six-foot high pedestal. She was positioned in the only open area of the garden, in the same location where the former Swiss Ambassador had installed a little red Japanese door to commemorate his father’s service in Japan as the first European doctor to arrive in Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. The artist stood quietly, hands folded in front of her, eyes downcast. FOERSCHNER / Belgrade Heartbeat 47 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00350 by guest on 24 September 2021 Marta Jovanović in Ljubav. Photos: © 2016 Marta Jovanović / Photos by Viktor Sekularac. 48 PAJ 115 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00350 by guest on 24 September 2021 Noises emanated from different points of the garden: helicopters, children’s laughter, mixed with the sound of people walking on the gravel paths meandering through the garden. This oddly composed soundscape, created by speakers hidden throughout the garden, was deliberately chosen by artist and curator to represent the soundscape of the war years experienced by Junod. A dissonance was created by the threatening sounds of airplanes and helicopters, which blended with the carefree laughter of children, too young to realize the gravity of the situation. This auditory contradiction reinforced the ambivalence Jovanovic´’s performance drew upon, an ambivalence related to the central concept for the performance— the antithetical notions of love and hate, peace and war, as symbolized by the hearts—but more so the ambivalence created in the audience members who saw themselves confronted with a strong sense of repulsion, paired with latent fascination that characterizes a disgusting object like a bloody heart. When they approached the artist, visitors noticed the fist-sized pig hearts distrib- uted into several buckets. While most of them stepped back with disgust, others took a closer look, examining the organs halfway submerged in blood. Moments of confusion ensued as audience members looked to each other, whispering and trying to locate the laughing children and the circling helicopters as they waited for the artist to move. Suddenly, as if trying to prompt the immobile artist to act or to relieve everyone of the discomfort, a heart went flying at Jovanovic´, hitting her on her left thigh where it left a dark red mark on her white dress. Several minutes went by and then another one hit her on her left shoulder. She did not react, but only drew a deep breath and steadied herself slightly. More and more people approached the buckets now, reluctantly picking up a heart as their focus extended towards their target. More and more hearts began to hit the artist, some missing her, some reaching up as far as her chest and neck, and some thrown so hard she almost fell. The atmosphere changed slowly; the careful and cautious throwing of the hearts was quickly replaced by increasingly angry assaults upon the artist. Occasionally, insecure laughter faded away as the only sounds remaining were the thumps of the hearts hitting their target at greater and greater speed. The initial disgust that many audience members had felt upon seeing the raw organs quickly became irrelevant as more and more of them reached into the buckets, blood dripping from their hands and arms. Towels provided for the audience carelessly landed on the ground, transforming the garden into the image of an apocalyptic battlefield littered with the garments of the wounded and dead. At one moment, a member of the audience took an entire bucket and dumped it onto Jovanovic´’s side, splattering her face and body with the remaining hearts and blood. Others followed this example. The throwing became more violent as audience members deliberately aimed for Jovanovic´’s face or head and the artist FOERSCHNER / Belgrade Heartbeat 49 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00350 by guest on 24 September 2021 almost lost her balance on the small platform of the pedestal. During the course of the performance, Jovanovic´’s rib was cracked. In the middle of a scene, which bore close resemblance to the gruesome practice of stoning, a woman walked up to Jovanovic´ and stood in front of her, and in her outstretched arm she held a flower which she offered to the artist. Jovanovic´ ignored her for a long time, but the woman continued to stand in the path of flying hearts and blood, similarly unmoved. Finally, Jovanovic´ kneeled down and took the flower from the woman’s hand. The performance had ended: the artist was now covered in blood and gore and the hearts on the ground had been arranged by audience members to spell Ljubav, or “love” in Serbian. In the performance, the core of our existence—the heart—is made manifest in its symbolic and physical forms. Freely used in various metaphorical meanings in everyday conversation and visual culture, the heart appears in Ljubav in its visceral physicality.

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