The photo exhibition "Old Fairground 1941 - 1944" by Marija Janković in the Artget Gallery is a reconstruction of Nazi crimes and a call to judge what was committed in this time of current revisionism on the basis of authentic messages and rare documents
The exhibition "Old Fairground 1941 - 1944" by Marija Janković, photo editor in "Vremen", will be the first in the new exhibition season of Artget Gallery in the selection of this year's artistic director Aleksandar Kujučev.
The exhibition opens on Thursday at 19:XNUMX.
As they explain in the Cultural Center of Belgrade, Marija Janković's method of work at this exhibition is also an announcement of the upcoming program in their Artget Gallery.
Dolls in the role of victim
There are 31 photographs in the exhibition. Marija Janković reconstructed the crimes of the past, Filip Bertachon writes in the catalog of the exhibition, based on written data. The scenography and decorations are made of cardboard, and the figurines were found at flea markets in the four corners of Europe. The scenes of the paper theater are made of pieces of glass, barbed wire, mud, Danube algae and pieces of limestone. Recycled objects, organic materials and fire contrast with realistic soldier figurines. There is also text and voices. Photos bring the crime scene to life. Marija Janković photographs the reconstructed scenes, their protagonists, focuses the lens on a doll, something becomes someone, and the entire future of women and men is loaded into the eyes of a toy.
"Not a single film has been found about the Sajmište camp, even though the Nazis had a habit of filming crimes, and incredibly few other documents of any kind have been preserved, mostly messages from the victims," Marija Janković told the "Vremena" portal. "While I was researching them in the Jewish Museum, I imagined them as pictures, I imagined those people as they wrote their last messages... I also held Hilda Deitch's letters in my hand... it takes great strength for a person to face that indescribable torment... Here, this exhibition is a consequence of those images, that emotion."
Covering up the truth
The photos are, as said, dolls. "For me, as a photojournalist, in the story of that camp, photographs are missing as evidence material on the basis of which the stories of those people would be told." That's why, using dolls, I made them based on the victims' messages and witnesses' memories. While photographing those reconstructions, I tried to do it as a photojournalist documenting the story, its atmosphere, its voices," explains Marija Janković.
The exhibition was a long time in the making, from 2008 to 2011. Now, says Marija Janković, due to increased revisionism towards crimes, her story is even louder.
"Yugoslavia did not deal with victims, it dealt with reconstruction, so that camp was turned into an art studio. The images created there contain some pain, I don't know if you noticed that. It's as if you can feel the trace of the torture of the camp inmates in them. The current state has rebuilt the Tower on the Old Fairground, it is a modern building, without any association with the camp tower. When you cross the Branko Bridge, you can see that everything along the embankment, where there used to be approaches to the Old Fairground, has been excavated. The current revisionism and all these excavations and revisions speak of how much and how the memory of the victims is respected. In this context, this exhibition sounds like an invitation to listen to the victims and understand what they are telling us."
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