Caged Birds of Paradise

Since the war has left scars relatively ‘covered’, Macedonia – as a nation, at present is seemingly to be forgotten about by the international community. After my latest impressions due 2014, visiting three years in a row, the country seemed to be catapulted into an awkward  ‘golden cage’. The title of the series Caged birds of Paradise mirrors this sentiment – that of an imprisoned, psychological status of timely postwar Macedonia. Viewed from an entirely personal stance, partially related to my family biography, this series is visualized fiction of what language nor words, are able to convey.

Caged Birds of Paradise, as a series, has been nominated on several occassions, among which by SO2015 Awards, The Netherlands.

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Since the war has left scars relatively ‘covered’, Macedonia – as a nation, at present is seemingly to be forgotten about by the international community. I’ve been visiting the country since I was born. After my latest impressions due 2014, visiting three years in a row, the country seemed to be catapulted into an awkward  ‘golden cage’.

At the time, it had its battles to fight regarding juridical- and political issues, of which social- and ethnically derived tensions are part. Tensions of which the rest of the world is conscious when it comes to the country’s heritage of its glorious – somewhat dusty past: That of communist either socialist ex-Yugoslavia held together by Tito. The title of the series Caged Birds of Paradise, mirrors this sentiment – that of an imprisoned, psychological status of timely postwar Macedonia.

As paradise is what the world is, when we are born, Caged Birds of Paradise, are those people seemingly able to fly, however part of them is caged. We, as a community, as a society, hold responsibility to one another. We all wish to ‘fly’, and we’d like to be able to set ourselves free, let alone those living in captivity. Therefore, family is the very start of community and the basis of how we wish for society to function. This series is my personal and visualised fiction of what language or words, can’t express.

Caged Birds of Paradise is part of a larger series of work, under the umbrella project Exile:BelongingThe family biography had sparked the urge to create a film, Sweet Terror of Memory. The poetic story I created, entwines the testimonies of many disturbing moments of lives and parallel experiences lived, becoming unchained and reconnected again. As a gathering of memory, set loose into the open, the beauty of grace resuscitated from its core.

The awareness and responsibility addressing my family’s story – and that of my mother seen from my position within the family constellation, was embedded in creating connections to parallel stories lived by other women; once daughters, mothers and grandmothers within the context of Europe’s history of WWII and its aftermath. 

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She is in a universe of walls

she said that nothing

is left of her

 Just

her contours

Threaded cover

Skin well hid behind
a web

of thoughts

of fibers

mended

together

The salt of stones

so subtle

the air

that breathes through

Your body captured

I look back but I don’t fall

Blind

Faith

as ever before

In faith I fall

no presumption

I look into a pair

of eyes

More

than a pair

Wonderful creatures

Graceful

What time choose me

Saline ground swell

Sing and chant

A tangle

 

 

 

 

 

 

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