Description

Exhibition of Contemporary Art "Some Call Us Balkans"
Artwork: W-here is Ballkan? Video art
Artist: Lori Lako
Due to lack of proper playgrounds, as kids we would often appropriate public space. The video of Lori Lako stages a usual neighborhood football scene, where the interaction of the subjects with the location can result indifferent at first sight, though we are all conscious of the influence that the environment, our buildings and our ruins have on us in direct or rather indirect ways.
In the depicted scene, the switch is given by the subjects of the game, which in this case are mixed gender. Shifting in this way the dynamics of the game which is often perceived as a hyper-masculine one. Another shift is given by the ball which is not the usual soccer one. There can be seen printed on its surface the Balkan geographical map, within its borders that are subject of continuous ever and ongoing conflicts. While terms like Balkan or Balkanization are most of the time associated with pejorative meanings full of misconceptions. The players, with every kick of the ball, move it away from themselves, as it is always the other to be the Balkan.