False Clouds | Lažni Oblaci

False Clouds | Lažni Oblaci

National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina 

10 September — 20 October 2022, opening: 9 September 2022 at 7 PM

curated by Gabriela Manda Seith

Sarajevo often disappears for days under a blanket of clouds, against the meteorological forecast of sunny weather. One may speak of them as«false clouds» made up not only of condensation of aerosols, but of harmful fine particles. While false clouds deceive, art can make visible how environmental pollution harms Earth and her species. The exhibition «False Clouds» investigates the chimneys that create and blow out these delusive clouds. They consist of acid rain droplets seeping into the soil, industrial sewage flowing into rivers, fine particles reaching the bloodstream of living beings, or microplastics we inhale and find their way into plants through their roots. These kinds of pollution often remain invisible, and thus, we rarely attribute to them the damage they cause. The artworks in this exhibition highlight different forms of environmental pollution both locally and globally, focusing on postwar Bosnia. Here, privatization of heavy industry, urban transformation, lack of governmental measures and neocolonial exploitation by international investors are among the major causes of environmental violence.

Accompanying the exhibition at the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a discursive side program explores these issues through film screenings and panel discussions at the Kino Meeting Point and the Urban Design Studio Sarajevo, lecture performances, workshops for children and guided tours. In these different formats, «False Clouds» combines artistic, activist, scientific and socio-political approaches to make visible what industrialists, politicians and lobbyists usually downplay: the clouds that poison the environment and obfuscate us of their toxic nature.

«False Clouds» is a project by EUNIC Sarajevo — the Goethe-Institut, the Austrian Cultural Forum Sarajevo, the Institut Français Sarajevo, the Swedish Institute, the Embassy of Sweden and the Embassy of Spain to Bosnia and Herzegovina — in cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation Sarajevo. EUNIC — the European Union National Institutes for Culture — is Europe’s network of 36 national cultural institutes and organizations from all EU member states and associated countries.

Artists in the exhibition and side program

Alma Suljević

Armin Ćosić

Böhler & Orendt

Danilo Kreso

Dušan Rodić

Edin Vejselović

Enes Žuljević

HeHe

Lala Raščić

Marianne Vlaschits

Matthias Böhler

Melih Sarıgöl

Mila Panić

Nina Softić and Adnan Softić

Nut Brother

Regina de Miguel

Rodrigo Lebrun

Rosa Whiteley

Smirna Kulenović

Tanja Deman