Vranje's public cinema is broken. And then there was that swimming pool.

So I organized Vranje residents around the idea of turning their town's defunct public swimming pool into a cinema for one night. But what movies to show?

'Rocky IV, Star Wars II, Bring it on, all or nothing...'

'Okay, well then you need to make them yourselves.'

So we've been re-making movies chosen and acted out by residents of Vranje, Serbia, and need some $ to finish up, and show them in that pool.

You can view some excerpts here.

project description

My wife works in peace building / conflict prevention/ cross border cooperation, so during the year 2008 we lived in the town of Vranje, in southern Serbia, near the border with Kosovo.

A little background on my initial experience as an American in Southern Serbia:

During the end of the Kosovo war in the late 90's, 'we' (US-led KFOR troops) had, less than ten years ago, bombed the town I was now living in, missed the military base, destroyed a row of homes, and dropped depleted uranium on their mountain-top. I encountered some expected tension early on- I was greeted with an 'America Boom Boom! tsk tsk tsk' at the local green market, was jokingly blamed for poor TV reception 'since you bombed all our antennae', and told by a radical party friend 'we don't hate Americans. Just America!'

However, these exchanges often took place over a coffee-table of pirated Hollywood DVDs or under the gaze of a Rihanna poster, and when I asked people in Vranje if there were any problems here, a common complaint I heard was "our public cinema is broken." The public swimming pool was broken as well.

I decided to take them at face value, and suggested we turn the broken public swimming pool into a free public cinema for one night. But when I asked what films they wanted to show, their responses were disappointing to me, an American seeking cultural immersion:

'Rocky IV, Star Wars II, Bring it on, all or nothing...'

Something of them had to be in this.

'Okay, well then you need to make them yourselves.'

While re-creating these films with Serbian, Albanian, and Roma youth, they began to talk to me about how it felt to be bombed by 'me.' I was touched by their simple frankness and lack of rancor. We were re-creating films of their own choice -- Star Wars, Rocky, High School Musical -- and the juxtaposition of the children's love of American pop culture with their recounting of sometimes frightening, often strangely nostalgic stories of our bombs was quietly revealing.

One child spoke of his fear at the specific 'not-sound, but vibration' he felt when planes dropped to bombing altitude over his town. Another child chimed in 'it was great! Our parents paid so much attention to us. We would sit under the bunk-bed, the strongest place in the room, and they would read to us, and give us dessert every day to distract us.' Another child spoke of his friend's house, 50m away, that was completely destroyed by an errant bomb, 'he has a new house now.'

I want to return to finish these stories in earnest. The juxtaposition of a child describing US bombs, and then snapping back into character as Shaquille O'Neal or Dr. Phil in the Scary Movie 4 scene he watched on YouTube presses at the delicate balance of shared cultures in a post-conflict society. I have already made many of the films, but need to return to finish them, record these stories, and screen at the pool.

resume

View my resume here

Descriptions of collaborating organizations:

My major partner in this project, 'Generator' NGO, is an organization that dedicates itself to the promotion of art and culture with youth in multi-ethnic southern Serbia. Their emphasis on art's role in community-building dovetails with my own goals, as does their grounded and frank work towards "equal and active citizens making decisions about their lives, developing their culture, and respecting human rights and the culture of others." They have worked extensively in the arts in Southern Serbia, organized cross-border collaborations, and have provided contacts, context, facilities, and guidance for me in the past.

The American Corner in Vranje and American Window in Bujanovac will be another important collaborating organization, as they are able to provide translators, venues, and access to multi-lingual youth who speak Serbian, Albanian, Roma, and English. Additionally, as American Culture centers situated in Southern Serbia, they will serve as advisors on cross-cultural sensitivity between Americans and Serbs.

Letters of interest from all of these organizations are available upon request.

timeline: May 1, 2010 - June 1, 2010

May 1, 2010: fly to Belgrade, Serbia
May 1-4, 2010, liase with Belgrade contacts to organize additional screenings
May 5: 2010: bus to Vranje
May 5, 2010 - May 19, 2010: film
May 20, 2010 - May 27, 2010: editing
May 29, 2010 - Screening in Swimming Pool, Vranje
May 30, 2010 - Screening in Belgrade/Pancevo
June 1, 2010 - fly back to NY, USA.

budget: $4850

$2000: transport ny-belgrade-vranje-belgrade-ny
$500: renting projector, chairs, and screen for swimming pool
$850: one month's lodging and expenses in Vranje
$500: artist fee
$500: fee for Generator NGO
$500: video editing fee

$4850:Total

work samples - culture shared via web can be pretty distorted, so I try to live it that way.

1. aftermath of a watercolor by jacob goble

   Jacob Goble painted a watercolor in the US, which I saw online in Serbia. So, I invited him to Serbia to "re"enact it in real life, crossing dry land by boat by digging a river for it. Along the way we got help from a retired Serbian Navy Officer and a very charistmatic Roma girl.

2. the ghana think tank, liverpool

   People in liverpool record their problems in a video-booth, which are sent via web-streaming to think tanks in Ghana, Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico, Serbia, and Ethiopia. We then enact their solutions back in Liverpool, regardless.

3. when websites crashed into my street

   An American in Serbia, I loaded up a flash animation from the web, and walked the streets of Gornia Charsia, a Roma/ Gypsy neighborhood in Vranje, Serbia, and convinced people to help me re-enact the flash animation, without the benefit of a shared language.

4. lunch in a lake, with douglas paulson

   Douglas Paulson and I decided to meet for lunch 'halfway' between our homes. Google Earth told us that 'halfway' was in the middle of a lake in a field in southern Czech Republic. So, we decided to forego technology from then on, and meet for lunch 'halfway,' no technology allowed. No emails, no phone calls, no contact beforehand: just meet for lunch in that lake at noon. An experienced exercise in the foibles of internet metaphors.

5. the robot that wants to be free

   A robot constructed from an office chair, an old set of stage lights, and other items found in the garbage is tethered to the wall by the power chord that supplies it with energy. Whenever it is plugged in, the robot stumbles towards its own lights, inadvertently "killing" itself in the process.