BOSNIANS OUT!
(Workers without Frontiers)                                                                             

In collaboration with:OSMAN PEZIĆ, SAID MUJIĆ, IBRAHIM ČURIĆ

On-site project for the exhibition
Museum in the Streets
Moderna galerija, Ljubljana, SLO
23 September – 19 October 2008

Design: Dejan Dragosavac-Ruta

I have been invited by the Moderna galerija / Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana to propose a work relating to the theme of
"Urban margins: parallel strategies of survival, self-organizing practices, migrants, workers' hostels, prisons…"     (from the curators' concept).

I wanted to bring two things together in my project:
- The Museum is interested in projects focusing on marginalized, "invisible" people, their forms of self-organization, and their life in Ljubljana.
- Exactly such people are doing the construction work involved in renovating the Moderna galerija building.

I developed the project in collaboration with three migrant workers from Bosnia employed on the Moderna galerija construction site. All four of us signed an agreement with the Moderna galerija under equal terms, and we worked together on the project in the Museum's provisory premises. My goal was to include the workers who have been working on the Museum building for months, in co-creating the content of the Museum as well, and furthermore, to open a new channel of communication for the workers, in order to create an active dialogue with the public regarding their situation in Ljubljana.

The final product is a campaign on the light boxes in the city center.

The workers chose the four main topics - working conditions, life in workers' hostels, poor nutrition, and separation from their families - as well as the campaign's direct tone, which on the one hand brings to the fore the stereotypical image of Bosnians in Ljubljana, and on the other, presents their "good" living and working conditions to Slovenians.

Andreja Kulunčić
Zagreb, June 2008.                                                                                                                                              <BACK

 

During the exhibition, the posters were removed by the Ljubljana city counsel without any explanation, and then after a reactions from the Museum, they decided to returne the posters into the city-lights boxes.
Newspaper article (croatian only) VJESNIK -> PDF