Reconstruction, re-examination, analysis and re-examination of various elements of the election process in Serbia is the goal of the exhibition "Erasing Appearances", which will be open to all visitors with organized professional guidance at the Center for Cultural Decontamination (CZKD) from March 11 to 23.
Using documentary material, statements of citizens, records of observers and voters from the field, as well as media reports collected by the Crta observation mission, the exhibition presents a curatorial reading of reports on the elections held in December last year.
The guest curator of the CZKD, Ana Sladojević, told "Vreme" that the exhibition refers to a social situation, which is the semblance of a democratic society that has been abolished in a certain sense, as shown by the various testimonies of citizens collected and processed by Crta.
The exhibition shows both signed and anonymous testimonials, and in addition to them there are blank testimonials in the exhibition in case any of the visitors wants to write about their experience from the election, if they have any.
The central place of the exhibition is occupied by laptops where citizens can check whether they are registered in the voter's list and at which polling station they can vote.
The key issue is impunity
Crta's creative director, Radovan Kupres, told Vreme that the central issue is actually the impunity of what happened in the elections, and that Crta defined in the Final Report something that would be called preconditions, because it is no longer possible to talk about election conditions while some prerequisites not solved.
"The first would be to see that someone is responsible for all those criminal acts that were committed in the previous elections." "None of those crimes could have been committed without the direct complicity of someone from state institutions, which is just a new level of problem," Kupres points out.
He explains that they do not have much hope that in that short period (until the next elections in Belgrade, which, if the request of the President of Serbia is fulfilled, will be on June 2), and in a longer period of time, it will happen that someone will be held accountable for forgery, purchase or any other type of criminal offense committed.
The problem, says Kupres, is that "we have been stolen from us as citizens, that we have been left without what makes us citizens who have sovereignty." And citizens exercise their sovereignty through elections, which guarantee that every government is replaceable.
"If elections are organized in such a way that they cannot perform their basic function, what is our alternative?"
To be a citizen or a subject
Kupres goes on to say that it is important that the truth, which is shown in the exhibition, reaches an increasing number of people, as well as an understanding of all levels of manipulation, and that citizens do not lose motivation and do not give up on taking the elections back into their hands.
And when asked how to motivate the citizens again, Kupres says that it is the "million dollar question", but that he cannot answer except to ask: "And what else".
He is of the opinion that no one except those who manipulate the elections will "cry for a second" if the citizens do not come out, on the contrary. "Our only possible response is to have as many of us as possible."
The message that the exhibition sends is that the illusion has been erased, with that Kupres concludes that, nevertheless, he thinks that some information has reached everyone and that globally "they can understand how serious this matter has become, as well as the question of whether we will be citizens or subjects . Sharpen your pencils".
