Original title: Snajperist
Single channel video, color/sound
Camera: Ervin Babić
Editing: Adela Jušić
Duration 00:04:09
Language: English
2007
The work is part of imai – inter media art institute foundation archive and Transitland: Video Art from Central and Eastern Europe
The imai archive includes approx. 3,000 valuable artistic and documentary works which provide a wide overview of the development of video art: from the pioneering era of the 1960s until the present day. On request the archive is accessible for research and scientific projects. Curators, lecturers, students and all interested parties are welcome to use the extensive collection of video art for scientific purposes.
Transitland is a collaborative archiving project initiated on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Its main outcome is a selection of 100 single-channel video works, produced in the period 1989-2009 and reflecting the transformations in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe.
Balkan Insight, screening, curated by Alicia Knock, Cinema 1, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
The aggressor’s sniper campaign against the population of the besieged Sarajevo during the last war was an inhuman violation of the rules or customs of war, directed principally towards civilians. My father has been a member of the Bosnian Army from the outset of the war through 3 December 1992 when, as a sniper, he got killed by a sniper bullet which hit him in the eye. Right before his death I found his notebook into which he continuously, over several months, listed how many soldiers he had killed during his combat assignments.
Still images from video
Revealing how wartime memories are intertwined with family and childhood memories, Jušić reminds us of the power of autobiographical work in questioning history and conflict. What is called into question in The Sniper is the reality of war itself, in an attempt to go beyond nationalist, ethnic or religious issues which have been the main point of discussion throughout the post-war period.
Read full text by Alessandra Ferrini HERE
Exhibition view SPA PORT, International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Banja Luka
THE SNIPER narrates the parts of a notebook in which artist’s late father kept file on his actions in 1992 as a soldier in the war. This narrative is paralleled by the minimal but effective visualization of the artist’s hand drawing a red circle behind which the photograph of her father will appear as brought to life by her memory.
Branka Vujanović
Exhibition view Continuity, Center for Contemporary Art, Celje, Slovenia
Initially the autobiographical nature of the work is not apparent: a hand is seen drawing a red dot on a white surface, accompanied by a female voiceover reading a series of diary entries. As the image of a soldier’s face gradually emerges on screen, the accompanying voices start talking over each other and the entire work becomes increasingly abstract. The climax comes on the date of December 3, with the words, “My father, the sniper, was shot by a sniper into his right eye.” This last statement not only draws all the different narrative strands together; it also defines the autobiographical nature of the work.
Excerpt of curatorial text for the exhibition Image Counter Image, Haus der Kunst, Munich
Read full article HERE
Photography used in creation of video, unknown author, September/October 1992
Born in Sarajevo and growing up during the Bosnian War (1992-1995), Adela Jušić’s rhetoric is predominantly entwined with issues surrounding memory, personal tragedy and the reality of conflict. Through processing her experiences mainly through the medium of video (The Sniper, 2007), Jušić’s work is at once cathartic and objective, looking at events from a distance in order to critique and reconsider the nature of war … Revealing how wartime memories are intertwined with family and childhood memories, Jušić reminds us of the power of autobiographical work in questioning history and conflict. What is called into question in The Sniper is the reality of war itself, in an attempt to go beyond nationalist, ethnic or religious issues, which have been the main point of discussion throughout the post-war period.
Curatorial text for exhibition HERO MOTHER / Contemporary Art by Post-Communist Women Rethinking Heroism, curated by Bojana Pejić and Rachel Rits-Volloch, Studio 1 & MOMENTUM Gallery, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin, 2016
More about this exhibition HERE
Photos of exhibition on Google +
Symposium and exhibition HERO MOTHER / Contemporary Art by Post-Communist Women Rethinking Heroism, with David Elliot, Sasha Pirogova and Marina Belikova, Studio 1 & MOMENTUM Gallery, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin, 2016
Link to the photos of the opening of exhibition Conflict: Art and war, CAS, London
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