Haunting Lessons

This paper examines horror through works by three artists taking the sites and remains of extreme violence as their subject matters: Australian actress Kym Vercoe’s performance piece, “Seven Kilometres Northeast,”(2010) Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić’s film based on the same piece, “For Those Who C...

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Autor principal: Joscelyn Jurich
Formato: article
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FR
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Publicado: University of Belgrade 2016
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/a308bb2e943a4cd7a1f94c88fba8ee49
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:a308bb2e943a4cd7a1f94c88fba8ee492021-12-02T02:08:28ZHaunting Lessons10.21301/eap.v11i2.60353-15892334-8801https://doaj.org/article/a308bb2e943a4cd7a1f94c88fba8ee492016-07-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.eap-iea.org/novi-ojs/index.php/eap/article/view/658https://doaj.org/toc/0353-1589https://doaj.org/toc/2334-8801This paper examines horror through works by three artists taking the sites and remains of extreme violence as their subject matters: Australian actress Kym Vercoe’s performance piece, “Seven Kilometres Northeast,”(2010) Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić’s film based on the same piece, “For Those Who Can Tell No Tales” (2013) and Bosnian photographer Ziyah Gafić’s ongoing project, “Quest for Identity,” begun in 2011, a series of photographs of the material remains found in mass graves around Srebrenica, several of which are displayed in the Srebrenica Memorial Room in the former Dutchbat headquarters in Potočari.  Vercoe’s and Žbanić’s works focus on Višegrad and specifically upon the Vilina Vlas spa, which was used as a rape camp during the Bosnian war. Spaces such as these where acts of violence occurred carry more than traces; they are replete with the environments of past events that linger and animate them.  They are what Avery Gordon describes as haunted sites of social life that are not easily perceivable but make their presence felt. Through examining these artistic works, I argue that they reveal how the seemingly inanimate may become an animated site of horror yet are also engaged creative attempts to transform psychic and spatial abjection motivated by a productive haunting of “something-to-be-done”. Joscelyn JurichUniversity of Belgradearticlehauntingwar violence in Bosnia-HerzegovinagenocideabsenceAnthropologyGN1-890ENFRSREtnoantropološki Problemi, Vol 11, Iss 2 (2016)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
FR
SR
topic haunting
war violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina
genocide
absence
Anthropology
GN1-890
spellingShingle haunting
war violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina
genocide
absence
Anthropology
GN1-890
Joscelyn Jurich
Haunting Lessons
description This paper examines horror through works by three artists taking the sites and remains of extreme violence as their subject matters: Australian actress Kym Vercoe’s performance piece, “Seven Kilometres Northeast,”(2010) Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić’s film based on the same piece, “For Those Who Can Tell No Tales” (2013) and Bosnian photographer Ziyah Gafić’s ongoing project, “Quest for Identity,” begun in 2011, a series of photographs of the material remains found in mass graves around Srebrenica, several of which are displayed in the Srebrenica Memorial Room in the former Dutchbat headquarters in Potočari.  Vercoe’s and Žbanić’s works focus on Višegrad and specifically upon the Vilina Vlas spa, which was used as a rape camp during the Bosnian war. Spaces such as these where acts of violence occurred carry more than traces; they are replete with the environments of past events that linger and animate them.  They are what Avery Gordon describes as haunted sites of social life that are not easily perceivable but make their presence felt. Through examining these artistic works, I argue that they reveal how the seemingly inanimate may become an animated site of horror yet are also engaged creative attempts to transform psychic and spatial abjection motivated by a productive haunting of “something-to-be-done”.
format article
author Joscelyn Jurich
author_facet Joscelyn Jurich
author_sort Joscelyn Jurich
title Haunting Lessons
title_short Haunting Lessons
title_full Haunting Lessons
title_fullStr Haunting Lessons
title_full_unstemmed Haunting Lessons
title_sort haunting lessons
publisher University of Belgrade
publishDate 2016
url https://doaj.org/article/a308bb2e943a4cd7a1f94c88fba8ee49
work_keys_str_mv AT joscelynjurich hauntinglessons
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