Description
Object description
whole: An installation in two rooms, a foyer and a projection room. In the projection room the video element of the work is shown: it depicts a play being enacted. The play involves two opposing sides, one wearing white shirts and the other checked shirts, talking to each other, but not able to make themselves understood. Army issue benches and matting are provided in the projection room, to give it the atmosphere of a briefing room.
In the foyer is a table on which is placed a large Kosovan leek. Five white shirts and five checked shirts hang on coat hangers from rails on the walls. Thirteen stuffed rooks sit on high shelves around the walls, apparently in conversation. Ten photographs (stills from the video) hang on the walls, along with sixteen small photographs of scenes from Kosovo. These scenes are titled as follows:
Skopje airport looking north west to Kosovo and Albania
Vaccination site at Gracanica
Mitrovica market
Power station, north of Priština
Albanian and Serbian journalist (with a protestant) in a bar, Priština
Black birds, north of Priština
Field of Blackbirds memorial
Crossing birdge, heading north, Mitrovica
Crossing bridge, heading south, Mitrovica
Roman camp
Serbian school, directly facing new Albanian school (distance approx 30m)
Opening of a new Albanian school, directly facing Serbian school (distance approx 30m)
University library, Priština
Outskirts of Priština
Village on road between Mitrovica and Pristina
VJ camp, Priština
Physical description
Components of the work are as follows:
16 small photographs mounted on aluminium (all landscape 170 x 250 mm except one portrait format).
A duplicate unnumbered set also exists (crate number C 38268. All labelled, with metal split battens and foamcore spacers. Not wrapped)
10 large photographs mounted on aluminium (710 x 1015 mm)
13 stuffed and mounted rooks which are installed onto 4 shelves. There are six shelves in total (5 shelves are 2330 long x 310 wide x 60mm deep, one shelf is 1150mm x 310mm x 60mm).
10 shirts hung on 10 coat hangers
1 folding wooden table
1 leek (long, Kosova-style leek to be supplied fresh and rested on the table)
DVD
6 folding army benches (dims when legas extended 522 h x 1800 l x 245 w mm)
black fin ribbed rubber matting x 3 rolls (approx 1200 mm wide)
The Shirts
The installation contains a display of shirts – five multi-coloured check shirts and five white shirts, all hung on identical wooden coat hangers with metal hooks.
The shirts are all slightly different and can be identified as listed below:
51 – Long-sleeved check (green/blue/khaki). Label: Leon Jean Co
52 – Long-sleeved check (blue/white/yellow). Label: George
53 – Long-sleeved check (blue/green/orange). Label: Venetti
54 – Long-sleeved check (green/white). Label: Casual Club
55 – Long-sleeved check (blue/yellow). Label: André
56 – Long-sleeved white. Label: Raebrook
57 – Long-sleeved white. Label: Marks and Spencer
58 – Short-sleeved white. Label: Next
59 – Long-sleeved white. Label: Burton
60 – Long-sleeved white. Label: Richmond and Watts
Ex-catalogue (spare) - Long-sleeved white. Label: Next Essential shirts
Label
In late 1999, the Artistic Records Committee of the Imperial War Museum commissioned the artist Graham Fagen to undertake some research in Kosovo relating to the recent conflict between the Serbs and Kosovan Albanians. His brief was to spend some time with the British Forces in KFOR and with the International Rescue Committee aid agency and to return with a proposal for an exhibition of work on the impact of the conflict on the communities, individuals and environment in Kosovo.
Fagen's preparatory research for his visit to Kosovo included a study of Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' and Henry V, Plato's 'Republic' and Homer's 'Iliad', as well as contemporary histories of war in the Balkans. Having decided early on that his work would take the form of a play, Fagen used his time in Kosovo to gather ideas and visual material for the piece. His subject was to be relationships and communication and how intransigence leads to violence. It was not until he went to Kosovo that he found the symbols, images and language that now constitute the complex scenario that confronts the visitor to 'Theatre'.
Label
In late 1999, the Artistic Records Committee of the Imperial War Museum commissioned the artist Graham Fagen to undertake some research in Kosovo relating to the recent conflict between the Serbs and Kosovan Albanians. His brief was to spend some time with the British Forces in KFOR and with the International Rescue Committee aid agency and to return with a proposal for an exhibition of work on the impact of the conflict on the communities, individuals and environment in Kosovo.
Fagen's preparatory research for his visit to Kosovo included a study of Shakespeare's Macbeth and Henry V, Plato's Republic and Homer's Iliad, as well as contemporary histories of war in the Balkans. Having decided early on that his work would take the form of a play, Fagen used his time in Kosovo to gather ideas and visual material for the piece. His subject was to be relationships and communication and how intransigence leads to violence. It was not until he went to Kosovo that he found the symbols, images and language that now constitute the complex scenario that confronts the visitor to Theatre.
Graham Fagen – Kosovo images
These photographs, taken by Fagen, combine aspects of contemporary daily life with symbols of Kosovo's complex history. These include the monument at the Field of Black Birds, site of the important battle between Serbian and Turkish forces in 1389, where in 1989 the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic's inflammatory speech set the parameters for the subsequent deep divide between Kosovan Serbs and Albanian Kosovars.
The photographs act as touchstones in the film piece Theatre, shown in the adjacent gallery. The film shows a deteriorating relationship between two groups, identified by their different shirts. Their conflict is anchored in Kosovo as these images flash onto the screen.
Above the gallery a 'parliament of rooks' observes the developing tension, making reference not only to the Field of Black Birds but also to the flocks of crows which which can be seen each evening circling above Prishtina and to the name of Kosovo itself, derived from the Latin Kos – crow.
The recent declaration of independence by the Albanian Kosovar administration brings a new focus to the division between the peoples of Kosovo witnessed by Fagen eight years ago.
History note
Artistic Records Committee Commission, 1999. The artist visited Kosovo December 1999. The work was exhibited at
the Imperial War Museum in 2000.
