Casts taken from the inner space of the heart. A space that cannot be seen in life. They look like bone fragments but is unclear what they are or where they are from. They allude to land boundaries with topographical landscapes that touch upon the idea of boundaries and borders. Residual colouration adds a visceral edge.
8372 cards memorial is a participatory art project created to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the fall of Srebrenica, during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Between 1991 and 1999 war broke out across the former Yugoslavia. Thousands of people were killed and many more were internally displaced or forcibly expelled from their countries. During 1995 in Srebrenica 8,372 mostly men and boys were systematically murdered and buried in mass graves. The victims, predominantly Muslim, were selected for death on the basis of their identity. This was the worst atrocity on European soil since the Second World War.
For this project 8372 business cards were printed, each one representing each of the men and boys killed during the srebrenica genocide. Business cards represent identity, status and the ability to make contact, many of those who died still remain missing.
Individually numbered with an automatic stamp each card retains an identity without being named. Volunteers were asked to participate in this process. Numbering was an important part of the piece of work. It conceptually represents the condemnation of each of the individual victims and the process engaged each volunteer to directly consider more deeply the events and actions of 23 years ago.
“I had a sense of the gravity of what happened 23 years ago whilst numbering the cards. Having numbered 200 cards, the enormity of 8372 truly hit me.”
“I realized that the sound of numbering was very reminiscent of gun fire”
Hear the sound file here:
Oxford Town Hall exhibition
All of the cards are being exhibited in the entrance of Oxford Town Hall until 16th July 2018. From the 11th July the cards will be uncovered and it will be possible to take one, metaphorically exhuming each of the individuals and acknowledging their existence.
This is an act of remembrance that will help to raise awareness and remind us all of the consequences of hate.
On 11th July the display case was opened making the cards available to take.
In the early stages of the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian Muslims were mandated to wear a distinctive white armband and display a white flag or sheet on their homes, marking them apart from their neighbors. This piece of art is meticulously crafted from strips of white sheets and tablecloths, a direct allusion to this painful period.
As the conflict unfolded, separation became more pronounced. Muslim men and women were segregated, with young boys undergoing further division based on their height. Boys under 150cm were permitted to remain with their mothers, while those exceeding this height were compelled to depart with their fathers, often facing an uncertain fate. This artwork hangs at precisely 150cm, symbolizing this grim distinction.
The lower segment of the artwork is imbued with a natural coffee dye, a potent emblem of community in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Before the war, citizens of all backgrounds would come together over coffee, transcending religious or ethnic lines. After the conflict, many Bosnian Muslims returned to their homes, only to discover that other families had occupied their dwellings. In a poignant gesture, they were sometimes offered coffee in their own cups, a symbol of displacement and dislocation.
The piece itself spans the width of a human body, extending onto the floor, evoking thoughts of burials, mass graves, shrouds, and mortality. It bears the title ‘Lie Down,’ which serves as a haunting reminder of the last words uttered by many before facing execution.
During the grim process of unearthing mass graves and the quest to identify the victims within them, forensic teams uncovered cloth ligatures and blindfolds at various mass grave sites in Srebrenica. These ligatures and blindfolds often shared the same fabric source, serving as crucial evidence during the Hague trials, demonstrating a level of organisation and substantiating claims of genocide. Here, all the cloth strips are knotted, resembling their potential use for such a somber purpose.
Lie Down - Detail
Lie Down - Detail
Lie Down - Detail
Lie Down - Detail
Lie Down - Detail
Lie Down
Lie Down - Detail
Lie Down installed at P21 Gallery London
Lie Down installed in The Guildhall London for Srebrenica Memorial event 11 July 2018
Lie Down installed in The Guildhall London for Srebrenica Memorial event 11 July 2018
Lie Down installed in City of Oxford College June 2018
Lie Down installed at Lincoln College Oxford
Lie Down installed at Lincoln College Oxford
Lie Down installed at Lincoln College Oxford
Katie Taylor talking about Lie Down at Lincoln College Oxford
Evaporate – textile art that explores loss. Singularly alone, the feeling of loss – lonely, empty, bleak and tearful. Evaporation also reminds us of the soul leaving the body and rising. Atoms that make us cannot be created, changed or destroyed. Like salt crystals our loved ones continue to exist but in a different form.
Installation art about death, Sum explores identity and individuality within a mass grave. Mass graves contain the remains of many individuals each with their own memories and individuality. Research in forensic anthropology and it’s use to determine individuals has been the inspiration for this work. Genocide atrocities are perpetuated through history in an endless cycle, and is represented here by a fibre optic circle that contains the empty vessels.
The burden of some memory is impossible to shift, it is dragged through entire lives, even through generations. Precious memory is often part of these difficult memories integrated and impossible to separate.
The endlessness of atrocities of war are explored through the act of labelling. Labels ususally determine individuality, but each label here says the same thing.