Europe Without Monuments / Architecture for Humans
由专筑网小R编译
“没有纪念碑的欧洲”是著名艺术家Stanislava Pinchuk的新作品，该项目受Manifesta 14委托，由Petrit Abazi策划展览、Architecture for Humans最终实施，该展亭位于Ibar河之上，应用脚手架搭建而成，给人们带来了与城市河流连接与互动的新方式。
'Europe Without Monuments,' is the new piece of art by renowned artist Stanislava Pinchuk and curated by Petrit Abazi, which was commissioned by Manifesta 14 and brought to life by Architecture for Humans. The pavilion was constructed in the ‘Ibar’ river in Mitrovica, using scaffolding that also offers citizens a new way of connecting and interacting with the river of their city.
The city of Mitrovica lies 37 kilometers north of Prishtina along the Ibar river; one of the many territories long disputed between Kosovo and Serbia. Defined by its expansive Trepča mine, Mitrovica is home to Kosovo’s third largest population - yet is often described as the ‘most divided city in Europe’. Following the atrocities of the 1998-99 war, the Ibar river has splintered the city into primarily Serbian north and Albanian south banks - with different languages, religions, mayorships, and currencies.
Although a new bridge has been built, for over two decades it remains a barricaded point of tension, witness to sporadic ethnic violence. Continuously patrolled by the Italian KFOR-MSU military, the bridge has seen a rise in pedestrians over the last years - although it still remains blocked by cars.
‘Europe Without Monuments’ is a playground and pavilion; an artwork placed in the middle of the Ibar river by the city’s New Bridge. Its three forms are taken at scale from Mitrovica’s iconic concrete ‘Monument to Fallen Miners’ built by architect Bogdan Bogdanović commemorating the unified revolt of Albanian and Serb workers from the Trepča mine against the Nazi occupation of the city. A difficult monument for both sides of the river, Bogdanović’s trilith weighs heavy with the promise and betrayal of Yugoslavia; belonging to everybody and nobody at the same time. Built from scaffolding in steel and zinc (a material still mined in Mitrovica), Pinchuk’s work re-imagines the city’s riverscape as fluid and ambiguous boundary, rather than a strict geopolitical divide.
Open until the end of summer, the installation celebrates a popular bathing spot; providing a playful point of congregation in a city where green and public spaces are profoundly lacking. Like a shimmering whale skeleton washed ashore, the scaffold recalls the process by which Bogdanovic’s monument was once cast, that can now be walked into and explored; where new narratives might form in the space left empty.
A Serbian humanist and intellectual, with ancestral roots in Kosovo, Bogdan Bogdanović was a publicly outspoken critic of the rise of Milošević’s nationalism. Once a Mayor of Belgrade, Bogdanović would spend the remainder of his life exiled in Vienna - close to his beloved Danube river. In his last interview, Bogdanović wished that he never had to build such monuments: ‘I dream of a Europe without monuments. By that, I mean without monuments of death and disaster. Perhaps philosophical construction: monuments to love, to joy, to jokes and laughter.’ Despite their tragic context, Bogdanović unusually loved the idea of children playing around with his works - designing them to hold meaning and wonder long into the future, for when the war in Europe would be a distant memory.
