The Development of the VIVISECT Project

A short documentary and the Book of Documents VIVISECT are a testimony to the way of organizing the "Blood and Honey" exhibition of war photographs by Ron Haviv in Novi Sad, and to the reactions of its numerous visitors.

The exhibition includes 64 photographs which present fragments of wars in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. Among thousands of photographs shot during the past decade in the last decade of the 20th century in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, Ron Haviv's photographs distinguish themselves by their unique power of testimony. His photographs on war tragedies won many awards and became recognizable on the covers of the papers and magazines such as The Times, The Newsweek, Paris Match and Stern. The exhibition titled "Blood and Honey: the Balkans War Journal" provides an insight into major events, but also into the street dramas of ordinary people: the Serbs, the Croats, the Bosniaks, the Kosovo Albanians, the Slovenians and the Macedonians. It is also an evidence of the disintegration of people's lives due to war destruction. The "Blood and Honey" exhibition gives evidence on the Balkan conflicts from their beginning in 1991 when Yugoslavia disintegrated, till the year 2001 when violence started in Macedonia.

The aim of the exhibition was to initiate a public dialogue about the war events in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and not to offer their final interpretation..

The exhibition held in Novi Sad between 10^th and 20^th September, 2002, provoked great media attention and controversial reactions by its visitors. The exhibition was seen by over 5,000 people.

The documentary film and the Book of Documents VIVISECT bear witness to the social and political situation in Serbia after fall of the regime of Slobodan Milošević, and to the reasons which make the process of facing the truth about the war and war crimes in the former Yugoslavia during the last decade of the 20th century even more difficult.

 

Context

In 2002, the Documentary Centre "Wars 1991-1999" and the "Rex" Cultural Centre, with the support of Freedom House and USAID, organized an exhibition of war photographs  by American journalist Ron Haviv "Blood and Honey" in six towns and cities of Serbia. The exhibition was first organized in Sarajevo (B&H) and Zagreb (Croatia), and then in Serbia.

The exhibition of photographs "Blood and Honey" was first organized in Belgrade, followed by Vršac, while its opening was prevented in Užice, Kragujevac and Čačak. Novi Sad was the last Serbian city in a raw where the exhibition was organized.

Incidents which have marked the exhibition of war photographs by Ron Haviv in other towns in Serbia influenced both the way of its organizing in Novi Sad. The groups which provoked the incidents from town to town applied the same pattern: dressed in black T-shirts with the image of the people accused in the Hague, Radovan Karadžić or Ratko Mladić, and the inscriptions "Serbian Hero" and "In God and Fatherland we Trust", they requested that the exhibition be closed because it "stains the dignity of the citizens and the country" as it is "anti-Serbian". The Serbian government neither condemned those nationalistic incidents nor they launched the investigation on the potential criminal liability for the incidents on the occasion of the "Blood and Honey" exhibition.  

 

What was the Aim of the Exhibition in Novi Sad?

Having in mind the events which were accompanying the exhibition by Ron Haviv in Užice, Čačak and Kragujevac, the organizers of the exhibition in Novi Sad (Vojvodjanka – Regional Women's Initiative, Center for Political Education and MEDIAPACT) developed a concept which had the following goals:

To initiate public discussion on war crimes committed on the territory of the former  Yugoslavia;

To offer the truth about wars which would be a  mosaic of different elements which may offer a relatively wholesome picture of the tragedy experienced by a part of the former Yugoslavia only when brought together;

To stress the necessity of knowing the facts about wars in any society;

To enable that everybody who wishes so to express his/her opinion and at the same time to recognize other opinions and different views regarding particular events from our recent past. 

In order to avoid incidents which happened in other towns, it was decided that Ron Haviv’s photographs were going to be exhibited for eight days without any author’s comments. The intention of the organizers was to give the opportunity to the visitors to provide their own comments beside each photograph. The visitors could write their comments in the Book of Impressions as well, or put up their own photographs or documents related to the wars in the former Yugoslavia they had brought.

During the Novi Sad Exhibition, two platforms (the Vietnam Syndrome and Is War a free Choice?) and the screening of 4 documentary films were also organized (The Road of Fraternity and Unity by Maja Weiss; The Museum is Open on Public Holidays by Adrijana Stojković; The War is Over by Ivan Markov; and The Victim of Geography by Dough Obry). All accompanying programs were organized in the Exhibition space. By this concept the organizers of the exhibition in Novi Sad achieved that the visitors were not only the passive observers but to take an active role in the process of facing the truth about the wars in the territory of the former Yugoslavia.

The exhibition was organized in co-operation with the provincial and city authorities in Novi Sad, and the representatives of the provincial and city MUP (Ministry of the Interior) with the support of the President of the Assembly of AP Vojvodina, Nenad Čanak.

 

Who were the Visitors of the Exhibition?

Some 400,000 people live in Novi Sad and its surroundings, and the exhibition was also visited by people from other towns and cities of Serbia, together with the foreigners who happened to stay in Novi Sad at that time. The visitors belong to all age, social, national and religious groups living in Novi Sad.

Some people visited the exhibition for several times, while the others came on a daily basis. The messages that were regularly "exchanged" on pieces of blank paper beside Ron Haviv's photographs particularly attracted the attention of the visitors who were reading them like a "novel in installments".

During the ten days of the exhibition, a specific way of communication was established which managed to cope with different emotional states and experiences - from the extreme and aggressive attitudes to argumentative and nonbiased ones.

 

Message Analysis

Out of the total number of messages written beside 64 photographs (verbal and non-verbal) the majority of messages contain explicit hatred toward the others (30%).

Who are Those 'Others' in the Messages?

In the majority of cases they are not Serbs, but primarily other nations engaged in the conflict (Croats, Moslems, Albanians), followed by the Americans who are present either in the form of UN peace keeping troops or as a reminder of the NATO bombardment in Serbia in 1999.

The others are of another religion, Catholics and Muslims. But they are also those who live in Serbia, yet feel like the people of Vojvodina, so, those are related in regional terms, and not national.

Love / hate is expressed towards leaders. There are three persons about whom there are the most messages: Tito, Arkan and Čanak.

This is followed by the messages with the implicit hatred (25%). Those are the messages glorifying one's own (Serbian) nation, religion, alphabet, persons, events, history, due to the belief that the Serbian nation is a victim. In their opinion, this is missing at this exhibition, and a guilty party is sought (organizers, photographers, or somebody else) which justifies the unwillingness for co-operation.

This is followed by the messages where, by introducing the speech of another person, a distance is made from responsibility and guilt, in various ways, by turning into a joke, the association which is hardly related to a photograph, by using an already created expression from some other genre or speech: a country song, film, comic, slogan, advertisement. There are 15% of such messages.

There are only 8% of messages, where the willingness for collective responsibility is noted, in which the voice of conscience includes the whole community.

There are only a few messages of personal responsibility (2%) testifying about personal confession.

There are 10% of messages in the form of a dialogue. Another visitor comments the message of the previous one. A dialogue and readiness to communicate were expressed on several levels: on the blank papers beside the photographs, on a big poster put up on the wall and in the Book of Impressions. Persons wrote messages in the Book of Impressions upon their own incentive. Others only leafed through the book and read what others had written down.

 

Is there any basis for hope?

We are looking for hope in those who left the messages. The messages next to the photographs were left by those who want to destroy the others, to glorify their own people to the detriment of the others, to discuss crime, but, above all, committed by others, to lead the dialogue to where they may find some common elements, to involve the almighty in the dialogue who solves a conflict, and then, hopefully, to accept collective responsibility anyway, and finally, some smaller percent of them, indeed, to accept personal responsibility.   Within the total number of 5,000 visitors, 1,300 of them had their voices heard – every fifth one is willing to enter a dialogue. The data on those who left messages are important if we want to plan the actions for communities' reconciliation in some bigger area.

Who are the messages directed to? To the author of the photographs, organizers, everyone and no one. In each of these intentions certain elements of hope for accepting responsibility and wish for reconciliation may be found, which may be used for the future reconciliation model taking care of who wants to talk with whom.

In what way should the dialogue be led? Abundant opportunities were presented: from the definite refusal of the dialogue to the tiny threads of co-operation. 

We may conclude that all the messages left beside the photographs represent a precious material on the basis of which the levels of what we call  responsibility may be noted - which is a prerequisite for the readiness for a dialogue with the others. There are various degrees, from expressive hatred and denial of the values of others, up to the traces of co-operation, but the latter may be reached. On the basis of the left messages, could a generalized judgment about the feeling of national responsibility for the war events be made? Certainly not. Mechanisms should be find to reconnect these tiny and, perhaps, lonely threads. In that sense the exhibition was successful, because it made possible reconnecting of tiny threads into a stronger rope.