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Prints I live in Berlin
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"I live in Berlin", 2001 "Ich wohne in Berlin", 2001
"Ich wohne in Berlin", Digital print auf Leinwand, 110x115cm Politische Landkarten von: Albanien, Bulgarien, Griechenland, Makedonien und Jugoslawien,
JOVAN BALOV: THE BERLIN – BALKANS OF MY REALITY
Five official political maps of the Balkan Peninsula published in the five Balkan states (Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia and Serbia) form the constituent part of the educational program of elementary schools and high schools of these countries and thereby approved by the Ministries of Education and are thus “politically correct”. These maps were all published in 2001. Placed side by side next to each other, they uncover details that compromise the tendencies of the Balkan states and peoples.
In contrast to the fact that the Balkan peninsula is always the same, regardless from which corner it is looked at (non-recognition of languages, non-acknowledgement of boundaries, non-recognition of territories, non-acknowledgement of names, non-acknowledgment of nationalities, non-acknowledgment of history, non-acknowledgment of culture, non-recognition of the church…), I wrote across each of these five political maps of the Balkans the sentence “Ich wohne in Berlin” (I live in Berlin), positioning the point of departure of the relation between the Balkan local processes of identity (actual history) with the global European trend of community (forgotten history), that is, the relation: Berlin – Balkans of my reality…
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