Guests
Sabine
von Fischer, architect, lives in New York, comes from
Switzerland
Deirdre
Hoguet, visual artist, lived in many places in US, now
lives in New York
Srdjan
Jovanovic-Weiss, architect, born in Subotica, lived in
Novi Sad and Belgrade, now lives in New York
Leo
Modrcin, architect, based in New York, comes from Croatia
Marjetica
Potrc, artist, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, lives in
Berlin, Germany
Goran
Tomcic, artist, writer, and curator, lives in New York,
comes from Croatia
Peter
Walsh, artist and writer, based in New York and Baltimore
Place:
Location One, 26 Greene Street, SoHo, NY
Date: September 23, 2001
Menu: vegetarian
lasagna, mixed salad, cake, red wine
Fritzie
Brown, Director, ArtsLink and Co-Director, go_HOME
I
would like to welcome you to the first dinner discussion held
in conjunction with the go_HOME project. This project was
born 2 years ago when Danica Dakic and Sandra Sterle, artists
from two of the countries of what was once called Yugoslavia,
devised the idea for a real artist's residency that would
feed into an on-line residency and would serve as a site to
explore the meaning of "HOME." Home was a relevant topic to
them, as they each maintain close ties with their Eastern
European home countries and with newly adopted "home countries"
in Western Europe. Sandra recounted that though her grandmother,
her mother and she were all born and lived in precisely the
same place geographically, they were all citizens of different
countries. The question of what home means in this new century,
in an age where interconnectivity holds the hand of fractured
isolation, is an interesting one to us all. The conversation
we will have today with our remarkable participants promises
fresh and illuminating perspectives and an opportunity for
your participation online via the chat room. Though the uncertainty
produced by the events of September 11 rendered many considerations
insignificant, the topic of today's discussion: the Architecture
of Migration and the underlying general concern with what
home looks like now is even of deeper importance.
I
would like to thank the sponsors of go_HOME, which is a special
program of CEC International Partners' ArtsLink Program. Go_HOME
is supported by the Animating Democracy Initiative, which
is administered by Americans for the Arts, a project of the
Ford Foundation; The Trust for Mutual Understanding; the Kettering
Fund; and Franklin Furnace's The Future of the Present Program.
I would also like to thank the staff of Location One who are
producing the webcast and providing this exquisite site for
our gathering. Further I would like to thank Jason Severs,
Jennifer Gullace, Dan Oki, Egbert Trogemann, and I would like
to dedicate the series of discussion events to the future
as it is embodied in Adrian Sterle Jokic. We invite your participation
in these discussions; our hope is that via the chatroom forum
on the Location One website, our dinner guests will be able
to respond to your questions as if you were here at the table.
Please respond with personal stories, perhaps stories of how
a shift in architectural environment influenced you or your
creative endeavors or with any relevant contribution. Bon
appetite!
Welcoming
guests around the table; introducing go_HOME: Danica Dakic,
Sandra Sterle, Marjetica Potrc
Introduction
to the discussion:
Katherine
Carl, writer and curator, Co-Director, go_HOME
In
preparing for this dinner we have had several discussions
about the difference between the terms "migration"
and "dislocation" as well as about the many interpretations
of the medium of architecture. The central questions for this
discussion are: what is home? Is it an idea or is it a place?
With the strong presence that the virtual holds today, what
role does place play in our lives? Is it something to be overcome
in order to be a "woman of the world" or does locality
expose the hiccups in the flow of global capital?
Go_HOME
embodies the simultaneous movement of both departure and return.
The artists' aim was to investigate home by displacing themselves
intentionally and building a new temporary home here. New
layers of investigation have been added to this by the new
situation in New Yok after last week's tragedies. New York
is usually thought of as a destination and home for immigrants,
but only in the last week has it been considered a place to
escape from or expatriate oneself from. Does the idea of safety
belong to the home: or is it a particular feeling that you
take from the daily home and carry with you wherever you go?
I hope the participants around the table and online will comment
on these issues and how architecture and migration have affected
your own creative work.
Goran:
I have a problem with the idea of home. It shifts from left
to right. I feel that just one place cannot be the only home.
When I was a child I always wanted to come to America. This
year when I was in Croatia (where I am from) I realized people
smile again there, after all that war and sadness. I had planned
to go back and do something there, but now, after what happened
in New York, I think I have to stay here and do something
here. Home is really everywhere.
Marjetica:
I discussed this morning with Danica the difference between
displacement and migration, and I think she has a lot to say
about this. One aspect for sure is, migration in contemporary
culture is very normal, just look at the way we artists live.
Srdjan:
I would really like to highlight the idea that migration is
normal. When we were about to form "Normal Group for Architecture"
we were thinking about what would be the most radical thing
to do today? Is it to be crazy? We thought that maybe it is
to be normal, but not to be nostalgic at the same time...
But still we don't know what is the most radical thing. I
guess that in and of itself is a liberating fact.
Marjetica:
Regarding the difference between "displacement" and "migration,"
displacement is about place and migration is about moving.
I associate myself much more with moving.
Goran:
Displacement is forced moving and migration is more about
voluntary moving. For example, all the members of my larger
family from Croatia live in Australia and New Zealand and
nobody was forced to go there. They have chosen to go. We
have had a tradition of migration in Croatia for centuries.
Marjetica:
But nowadays migration is a very everyday experience. Every
three days another million people move to cities in the so-called
"third world." But take the "first world". In Zurich there
is the project "Kraftwerk" which deals with urban migration.
They offered urban migrants warehouses, which are leftovers
of the "industrial era."
Marjetica:
I was also talking with Danica about home being more an idea
than a place to go.
Leo:
You see, we are in the very place--a former industrial loft
renovated into a residence--that is based on this kind of
displacement. We must speak about the difference between forced
and voluntary migration. Voluntary migration is based on certain
socio-economic foundations. Most of us here, at least me,
have come here by their own choice. New York is a kind of
melting pot. I see my migration as definitely different from
refugees who were forced to leave their homes.
Danica:
I myself am a kind of art-migrant. After I finished my studies
in Sarajevo and Belgrade, I felt it was essential for me as
an artist to go away. But after four years in Germany, the
war in Bosnia started. During the four years of the war, all
my ties to Sarajevo, to my family, friends, and to my past
were broken. And I couldn't go back. After the war I didn't
want to go to Sarajevo because I didn't want to lose the idea
of home by facing all the destruction, but I had to go because
my mother lived there. I saw a lot of emotional damage done
to the people. Our apartment was still there, although I saw
all the damage on the facade of the building. Across the street
from my former kindergarten was a hole in the ground. None
of my old neighbors were still there. The only thing that
hadnít changed was the tree in front of my door. When
I was a kid, we used to play a game called "protecting the
tree/cuvanje drveta." So we, children on the street, spent
years protecting the tree. I suddenly realized that this helped
me to protect the idea of home.
Sandra:
It is interesting to realize that even though I am not directly
a victim, a person coming from 'our area' has this identity
of a displaced person. This thought is comfortable to many
people. They think, "oh, it happened to you, not to me." Once
we realize that displacement and migration happen to everybody,
there is nothing to be scared about. Let's talk about crossing
borders; people do this for different reasons. We should be
able to discuss our personal stories without any title. But,
there is also an issue of economics attached to it.
Deidre:
We were talking about forced versus voluntary migration. However,
even if you choose to migrate, many times it is for economic
reasons.
Peter:
I agree with Deidre. I feel I am in New York a little bit
against my will. I haven't had the experience of war, but
where I am from in Baltimore, in the middle of the city where
homes used to be there is now an empty field...in the middle
of the city. It's a kind of economic violence. In Baltimore,
the mayor bulldozed thousands of homes a year because they
were abandoned. People moved because they couldn't make money.
I am in New York because there are a lot of opportunities
here.
Goran:
I think it is very significant that many of us mentioned economic
reasons. We can't talk speak from the perspecitve of truly
displaced people. We all can go home, but people from Srebenica
cannot go home. I came to America also because of the dialogue.
I wanted to be part of the contemporary art world and to participate
in this dialogue.
Srdjan:
I am an architect and I see it a little bit differently. I
can't really sell any products or objects...and I start doubting
if what I do has to do with any products.
Goran:
I mentioned also dialogue.>
Srdjan:
Yes, I am following your opportunistic cause.
Goran:
I don't think it is opportunistic. It is human to want to
be part of the dialogue.
Leo:
This conversation seems to be trying to fix what home is.
It revolves around two poles. Whatever happened in former
Yugoslavia happened because of different notions of what home
is. The notion of home is not absolute. The useless piece
of land in the former Yugoslavia that people kill and die
for is totally different from what I understand Deirdre and
Peter speaking about, or from what Marjetica is very eloquently
working with, especially in her study of American housing.
There are two really different opposing notions of what home
is. I live here in New York, which is my home now, but my
real home is always this abstract notion of a little house
in a little town in Croatia...no matter what.
Srdjan:
I am really glad that Danica brought up the idea of the tree
as something rooted. It is also a mythological symbol of man
and a woman, actually nature. In most mythologies the tree
is a symbol of humanity.
Marjetica:
It is an archetypic image. I would like to mention an example
of how old images mutate into temporary architecture. "Temporary
architecture" used to be a negative term after the Second
World War. But today, in contemporary culture, not only are
containers in abundance, but containers are built with peaked
roofs. Belfast really has a container culture--I saw there
quite a number of containers. For example, I know of an Irish
language school that started in a container. Bars and kindergartens
are located in containers. Lots of my work has to do with
individual initiatives;Iíll just mention two forms:
gated communities and shanty towns. People move there out
of their own private initiative. There is no societal structure,
like government, to organize apartments for people. It is
telling that public space doesn't really exist in gated communities
and shanty towns.
Srdjan:
There are a lot of houses to be built just to be empty. Here
in America people build houses that they visit once a year.
I want to stress that this is happening not just in the very
developed societies. I have done research in Belgrade where
they have built 50,000 new empty houses. The refugee problem
could be solved by using these houses.
Marjetica:
It is also possible to buy a piece of desert or remaining
empty space of earth.
Sandra:
Let's talk also about the relation between real and virtual
space. The attachment to real space somehow always produces
suffering. It is possible to be attuned to virtual space and
also to one's body. We all have many houses or homes, but
there is actually only one house that we really possess and
that's our body.
Peter:
Is freedom a good feeling? I feel that home, as a physical
building, protects your body. Otherwise, it is a scary idea
that there is nothing between me and the environment, me and
the cold, the rain, the snow.
Sabine:
Nobody wants to be a nomad.
Goran:
I think you would be surprised how many people want to be
a nomads. The first thing I thought about when the World Trade
Center fell down were kids. I thought this might be our future...constantly
moving from one disaster to another.
Katherine:
There is somebody online who wants to ask the people around
the table about nomadism. Is it different perhaps in Europe
than in the US?
Sandra:
Europe is more "sophisticated," by that I mean it is more
complex, because people are crossing borders so much. There
are so many different languages, cultures, and customs; this
is not an easy place for a nomad.
Goran:
The only nomads are gypsies.
>Leo:
To be able to move is often thought of as a higher level of
civilization. This capacity is a modernist ideal in a Faustian
sense. You can reinvent life, you can choose to go away...This
country is based on that concept. The American idea is to
be able to escape and choose to go somewhere else. Here I
am fighting with myself because I still have incredibly strong
ties to where I come from. I am also disappointed because
I have been transformed by living here and when I go back
to Croatia the original image from my mind doesn't fit into
current reality...but that's another issue.
Goran:
It seems to me that what you are saying here corresponds very
well with what Sandra said about the body.
Leo:
Yes, but I think it is too easy to say I am my own body and
I can be anywhere in the world; I have an internet connection,
so it doesn't matter where I am. For me, it does matter where
I am.
Peter:
Just to say something about the modern idealization of escape,
moving freely, and reinventing yourself. Last summer, when
I was working for American Express in the building just right
next to the World Trade Center, I was working in their legal
department. I saw that large corporations can move their people
around the world with no problem while others cannot move
freely. Large corporations can move people they need wherever
they want them to be. The idea of going where you want is
nice, but reality is somewhat different. There are other forces
in the world!
Marjetica:
I think economy is the strongest movement in the society today.
Deidre:
I think there is no nomadism today. It is, just as you said,
related to work and economics.
Marjetica:
This actually is what is supposed to happen in Europe, and
then the states will join together, obliterating traditional
national boundaries.
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