“Thirty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the former frontier city of the Cold War, Olja Triaška Stefanović traces the iconography of the confrontation between the two major power blocs – the remnants of the Wall, the former checkpoints, the former Stasi headquarters, and the espionage and news services. In parallel, she presents the other, lesser-known, third party of the Cold War – her research into the United Nations as a forum of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) countries. The Auditorium of the United Nations General Assembly building in New York symbolized the passion for peaceful reunification and peaceful coexistence on a global scale. The NAM was established in Belgrade in 1961 as a forum for countries that were not aligned with either of the two power blocs of the Cold War. The topics of solidarity, cultural and diplomatic exchanges, and the meaning of peaceful coexistence were the pillars of the NAM.
The fear of nuclear confrontation and the passion for peaceful coexistence, as opposite aspects of the Cold War, feature prominently in the exhibition. Stefanović also ventures into the deeper layers of memories of her childhood: her mother worked as a teacher for foreign students who arrived in the former Yugoslavia as representatives of the non-aligned countries, and she recalls her discussions with her father on the internationalization of Yugoslavia. Contemporary photographic research in New York, in the former Yugoslavia and in Berlin via a residency at BHROX, in addition to representations and mediated press images, journals, and books, is complemented with archival objects – from the personal archive of Olja Triaska Stefanović, or from the archives of institutions such as the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, the United Nations Archives, the Archive of Yugoslavia, Matica Srpska Novi Sad, and the Berlin Stasimuseum”.
Helena Huber – Doudová, curator
