The exhibition “Memories of Theater Costumes” realized by the Museum of Literature and Theater Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of the “Culture for the People” project, with the support of the Municipality of Novo Sarajevo, opened on Monday evening on Vilson’s Promenade in Sarajevo, the museum announced.
Dedicated to the theater heritage of Sarajevo and the artists who shaped it, the exhibition is across the street from the Aquarius cafe near the location of the future Ars Aevi Museum of Contemporary Art. Citizens and visitors to Sarajevo will be able to see it during August.
The concept of the exhibition and photography is signed by Zoran Lešić, the dramaturgy is Mirjana Blažević Lešić, the project manager is Ifeta Lihić Gašović and the photographer’s assistant is Zulejha Kečo Kapidžić.
The exhibition was opened by author Zoran Lešić with the words that “Memories” are an artistic reaction to forgotten theater costumes.
“This is a silent resistance to oblivion that is slowly covering the artists whose creativity has shaped our cultural memory and identity. Starting from the archives of the Museum of Literature and Theater Art of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Sarajevo National Theater, the exhibition explores the relationship between costumes, memory and human presence through photography and author’s interpretation. The project was realized with the support of the Municipality of Novo Sarajevo and we are sincerely grateful to them for that. We chose Vilson’s promenade because it is a symbol of youth, a place where parents and children pass by and we want to convey these memories to them,” said Lešić.
The exhibition is not intended as a chronological overview of the history of Sarajevo theater or as a reconstruction of individual performances, but as a contemporary artistic interpretation of the theater heritage. The archival material served as a starting point for a new visual interpretation of costumes, which gives old sketches and preserved traces new life and meaning in the public space.
“I was often grateful to the costume on stage, which allowed me to be a different me. Without that costume, I would just be the same, boring Kaća, and the costume allowed me to be everything I wanted. That’s why I am eternally grateful to the costume designers who designed them, the tailors who made them, the dressers who looked after them, as well as the viewers who remembered them “ said Kaća Dorić, Bosnian theater, film and television actress, who has been associated with the Sarajevo National Theater for decades, during the opening of the exhibition.
“The exhibition’s dramaturg Mirjana Blažević Lešić emphasizes that working on the exhibition was both a research and a creative adventure.
My task was not only to find archival photographs, costume sketches and documents, but to tell a story from them that would bring to life the people, performances and the time from which they originated. I chose traces that still carry the emotion and presence of the artist today, believing that the archive is not a place of the past, but a space in which memory can speak again. I tried to put all these fragments together into a single mosaic – a story about theater costumes that, in fact, tells the story of the people who wore and created them. And its most important message is simple: Don’t forget us,” she said.
The idea for the “Culture for the People” project developed after the experience of the “Stripoteka na atrotno” festival, which aroused great interest among the citizens of Sarajevo, as well as foreign visitors. At that time, the importance of museum production going beyond the walls of the institution and presenting it in a public space, where it becomes accessible to a wider and more diverse audience, was recognized.
Our intention is to realize the project ‘Culture to the people’ every year through different exhibition contents and to bring museum archives, collections and contemporary art production closer to citizens, especially those who may not be in the habit of visiting museum institutions – pointed out the project manager Ifeta Lihić Gašović.
Đani Šehu (guitar) and Adi Šehu (flute) performed in the musical part of the exhibition opening program.
The holder of the project is the Museum of Literature and Theater Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it was realized with the support of the Municipality of Novo Sarajevo and the Tourist Board of Sarajevo Canton.
