Gallery 11/07/95 is one of the finalists for the Museums in Short 2017 Award with a video “Srebrenica” by Tarik Samarah. The concept is based on the idea that the short films are important means for stimulation and distribution of museum content. From 2012 Museums in Short has an aim to expand the awareness about the museum role through the innovative video production.
Video Srebrenica through series of black and white photographs by Tarik Samarah presents the aftermath of the genocide in Srebrenica. Moving the focus through the present life of the survivors, exhumation of the mass graves, the identification process, the funeral of the victims, the role of the international community – the Srebrenica video unfolds an upsetting story about the biggest crime in Europe since the WWII.
This video is a product of a collaboration of Gallery 11/07/95 and creative team of Fabrika (Antonio Ilić and Dusko Šegvić) from Sarajevo. The video was originally created for a commemoration held at the UN headquarters in New York on the 20th anniversary of the genocide in 2015. The speech by Tarik Samarah was read in which he calls upon the responsibility towards the similar events happening today.
The speech and the video are reflections of an integral part of the Gallery’s and Samarah’s artistic message:
Ladies and gentlemen,
After the Holocaust, Primo Levi, philosopher and Auschwitz survivor, wrote: “It happened, therefore it can happen again… It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.”
Twenty years after the Srebrenica genocide and seventy years after the Holocaust, the world has not been saved from the possibility of a repetition of the history of evil. As wars rage in the world, as Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, the extremist right and all kinds of discriminatory practices and policies against all those who are identified as the Other, Primo Levi’s words have never been truer.
Today, I want to call us all to account – let us not be indifferent to what is happening around us, let us be responsible witnesses, for if we are indifferent – silence is a tacit acceptance of injustice.
Thank you!
The announcement of the best and innovative video in the Museums in Short contest will be held in August 31 in Pirano, Slovenia. There are two main awards: the Museum in Short Award from the Special Jury Award and Public Special Mention. This year there are 40 different museum institutions from all around Europe.
You can vote for Gallery 11/07/95 video here.
This year is also gallery’s 5th anniversary since it opened it’s doors to the public. In these five years, Gallery 11/07/95 has managed to become a representative cultural symbol of Sarajevo, and to be a part of this competition represents one more step in the realization of our set goal in becoming contemporary museum institution.
To remind you once more Gallery 11/07/95 is nominated for one of the awards of European Museum Academy this year and last year it was in the finals of EMYA Awards 2016.