Just Another Hero

2019
Installation, mixed media 150 x 45 x 45 cm

Kosovo, as well as several other Balkan countries, all of which have been through much fighting in the past few decades, have seen art in their public space turn into something frustrating; public space is not a social collaboration but rather a place where the powerful place ‘their heroes’. Most of these heroes, often unknown to its citizens – whose merits for liberation efforts are nonetheless not to be discredited – have had their bronze sculptures made in the form of busts and statues, and quite unsystematically set in numerous squares and open spaces of various cities. This phenomenon took place in my home, Kosovo, where busts and statues have taken over every square. However, what is perhaps most damaging for society is that these monuments have become increasingly tasteless. As a reaction to this phenomenon, ‘Just another Hero’ involves my own ‘bust’ in common size, made in social-realist style, and moved from one city or square to another. I aim to send ‘my portrait’ from one public space and gallery to another, in order to show this new reality: that of how public space is ‘used’ in many places of the Balkans, and to raise debate of this trend.