While I was a child, I spent four years living through a war. This war affected people in different ways, some less, some more.
To me, it meant that from the first rocket we saw in the sky over our city—not only had a war begun—but that my father, living in America, and who had long planned to get me, mother, and brother over to America so that we could share in his American dream, completely abandoned us.
My dad stopped calling, writing, and sending money, and it was war. I was living with my mother and baby brother in the tiny stone house , and one I most ever felt and thought of as home. It was an interesting time to stop supporting a woman with two of your children, and one a breast-suckling baby, and I’m not sure what kinds of self-preservation, selfishness, and fear made him. Maybe he was scared he, a musician, might be drafted into war if he could be traced? No idea.
From the house we lived in, overlooking the sea, you could see very well the red rockets being shot at from the "Yugoslav," or rather Serbian owned ships that were shooting at Split. They sort of looked like red broken lights in red bows, crisscrossing over the night sky. Seeing these lights put such an intense fear into my tiny little frame—I was petrified of actually being in the house and of us being alone. I felt profound panic, fear, and the need to be around other people.
The red light attack had a worse effect on my grandfather. My grandfather during one part of his life was the electronics director in the ship yard of Trogir. He had worked on building warship called Split for the than yugolav state and army. He was the one who oversaw the installation and design of electricity in this warship. It was a war ship called Split that was used to bomb the city of Split. It was Split the ship, that was bombing Split form the sea. The only time ever- i saw my grandfather cry was when he told my mother this.
The makeshift war shelter that my neighborhood came up with was the cellar of an old stone building, a once-aristocratic Lippeo mansion, now an apartment building, where the cellar served as storage space for a shop. The air of this space was so full of baking flour that, upon entering it the first night, I had a series of panic attacks because I thought I could not breathe inside.
I eventually got used to the air within, or it was swept enough times by the panicking women, and this shelter, this one large room, became a kind of a makeshift home for many months and nights during the next years.
The neighbors brought over mattresses from their own beds and made makeshift benches along the wall, and upon these mattresses slept all the children of the neighborhood, all the old women, all the mothers, and some old men—as the healthy men, young and fathers, were soon drafted to war.
I remember when I found it hard to sleep as we listened to Kalashnikovs firing in the dark, our one window stuffed with sand, blocking all light, and to stop any bullets. The shelter was only ever lit by a small candle in the night, so as to not make lights, and the very glass was covered with brown packing tape in many layers. Most people would sleep, but I remember finding it impossible for many nights as I listened to the sounds from outside.
My mother had an idea at some point that we tie the dog we were looking after, the beautiful Lassie, and the black terrifying dog of the local drug dealer around the shelter, so they’d warn us if the enemy was nearing—but the dogs ended up untying and fighting in the night.
We knew all about the sirens. And hid when sirens were sounded. And left the shelter when they seemed to let us. We were in our little sea town, exposed to the enemy from the air, from the sea, and from the lands—the enemy air force—as Croats at the beginning of the war were without any airplanes, any tanks, and any weapons that the "Yugoslav" army, mostly commanded by Serbs, used to crush the attempt at independence by the countries wanting to leave the six-country Yugoslav union.
I kept hearing things at the back of our building where there was a toilet and a window, and I was scared, they just thought i was a kid over doing it-. One night a bunch of Croatian army soldiers came over to us. They told us that behind us, 10 meters behind us, in the park, in what was a tourist camp—Serbian soldiers were camping. The soldiers had made them depart. It probably is impossible for you to know what the enemy camping behind a building full of women and children might mean—unless you saw the news reports from that war, reporting on the instances where they made it into such buildings and after which no one was left alive.
The soldiers saved us. My mother fell in love with one of the soldiers, as did all the women. But by this time, my mother was clearly single, very beautiful, and suddenly the handsome soldier made my mom my second brother and engaged with her, but was not really around, was always on the front.
My aunt was a politician and buisness woman at the time, and she was in the negotiation with the Serb army to leave our region, though I don’t know the details. Not much was destroyed -as was in the north of Croatia. My aunt also got my mother a job working for the UN, who were sleeping in her hotel. And my mother in turn employed everyone who she knew needed a job—in the UN.
However, the British engineer that was my mother’s boss was completely besotted with her. Lurked and stalked, courted her in such a public way, that the soldier, eventually scared he would lose his son to this foreigner, kidnapped my brother from his nanny as my mother was at work and I at school. My 1.8-year-old baby, breastfeeding brother ended up somewhere in war-thick Bosnia, in the care of an unknown woman. My mother was out of her wits at this point for a couple of months, and then the brother of her fiancé stole the baby from the Bosnian woman and returned it to my mother, who was being driven around by her boss.
This made the soldier so mad, he hunted us. This was a soldier who in his warm war stories told me he had not eaten for 14 days and faced an enemy squadron alone. He banged at the door of my grandparents and told my grandmother he would slaughter me, my brother, my mother, and take his baby son back.
My grandparents had friends in the most northern part of Croatia, Stubice, in a village in the countryside where no one knew us. These good people took us into their house in the woods and hid us for the summer. In autumn, we moved to Zagreb, my mother cut off all my long hair so anyone looking for me would not recognize me.
There my mother married her boss from the UN, who was expelled from the United Nations forces for his illegitimate intervention with this soldier and Croatian army forces, and losing all his property to his ex-wife in Britain.
I can’t say I was happy. I can’t say I felt safe. I was groundless. All I had that I could control was drawing.
We moved to England. Eventually, I figured it out. Learned the language. I was not allowed to call or write to my friends in case the soldier found out where we lived, in case he came to look for us, we continued hiding. I was not allowed to visit—even when the war had ended. We did not return home when the war ended.
England became this period that turned into a life. We lived in one and then a second village. I fought my mother and stepfather to stay at the school I had by chance managed to accidentally make—King Edward VI—because we lived in a village that fell into its region, and once we moved to another, which had no bus to my school town, I fought to stay at my school by choosing to cycle on the bike—to school every day if needs, and it did need it—the many miles in whatever the English weather.
For a while, I also accompanied my younger brother—but he soon gave up the trouble and resigned to go to the school with the bus.Where fewer people went on to complete A-levels or university than the school I had, by chance, stuck with.
In the big art book in Ms. Judi's class, I once came across the performance Balkan Baroque by Marina Abramović.
The piece moved me deeply, for it seemed to express the feelings I could not describe about this war I had lived through. The artist was Serbian, though.
For me, as a small Croat, the world was so simple. We were Croat, the Serbs were our enemy, trying to kill us in our own backyard—we were Catholics, there was one God in the universe. Things started shifting in England, where I discovered so many other cultures that were nothing like the one I had come from. Where I eventually started to see there are many sides to everything, and the idea of one universal truth I had felt so strongly I had known—disappeared.
The fact I loved her work, the fact she was Serbian, was probably divine intervention, because I had to get beyond my developed prejudices to value the work. The work moved me profoundly.
And I instantly felt intrigued and connected to this woman and her performances.
In England, in the environment I was growing up in—Lichfield and the village of Elford—I had no contact whatsoever with anyone from the Balkans or who spoke my language for years. In fact, Marina was the first Balkan person I had, in this way, had contact with—via her work. It was also the first art performance work I had ever discovered. It invited me into the language of art performance.
Part 2
"Shall I come to Belgrade this week?"
"My children are on the island with their father, I sold a painting and have money right now—I don’t always." I was talking to the writer-curator who had invited me to come exhibit in Belgrade having discovered my work trough the press.
She had other plans, but in the impulsive euphoria that takes one over when inspiration is at hand, she caught on to it. Changed her plans and told me to come over. She had invited me to do a solo exhibition in the heart of Belgrade a year ago, but it had never quite been the right time, as her health was the issue.
I had just returned from my first trip to London with my children, who were to leave and spend a week with their dad on the island. My boyfriend was on the sailing boat he worked on that summer. And I had invited over Florian Richter from the art group Glitin to stay in my sea castle house—because it was so bizarre and inspiring, it called for artists to live in it. More than anything, leaving my children to their dad like this always put into me a sense of terrifying vacuum I could not live with. I needed an adventure so the terrifying loneliness of having to be without my children by force wouldn’t crush me.
I was arranged. I met up with the fantastical, marvelous Florian and his wife, left them my keys to the house in the sea, and got onto a coach for Belgrade.
Some 12 hours later, I was in Serbia. It was my first time. I had no idea what to expect. I had no preconceptions. And I had long ago renounced the enmity I had felt as a threatened child some 30 years before. I was just curious to see and explore, as I am whenever I land in any new place. I bought the lady champagne on the way.
The curator kindly came to pick me up at the coach station, and we took a bus to her house. She told me all about the different buildings, parks, kinds of sculptures, embassies as we drove through Belgrade.
At home, I met her husband—both in their 60s, and both as kind and funny as could be.
I was fascinated by their banter, their exchange. This curator, devoutly loved by her husband, who seemed to cook and look after every need of hers in the most devoted way. His wife, who had seriously compromised health. She spoke with humor, drama, and both educated, delicious words and crude swear words all mixed into one effectful blend.
Their house gave me a sense of déjà vu. They had pretty much the same bathroom, with the same tiles as my grandmother’s. They had the same orange light shades as my grandmother. And the apartment was decorated with the furniture made in Yugoslavia, which my grandmother had—but it seemed everyone in the Balkans had the same. It appeared to me that across Yugoslavia, everyone had the same furniture—which was very strange for me.
Apart from this, their house was chock-a-block filled with books and art.
For the next three days, the curator lady and her husband treated me like a daughter. He cooked vegetarian recipes for me from the Yugoslav Army Cookbook—the only one he ever used—and they were delicious. She took me to see a historical museum so I would understand more about Serbia, so I would see how long ago Serbia had started- and its cultural wealth. So we started with the mammoth bones and cavemen.
We saw the fine art collections, which were beautiful and inspiring. She took me for cake in the most theatrical, charming restaurant—deliciously exotic. She told me all about everything she possibly could, walking around in her body, always needing insulin, and with a weak heart with several stents. I felt guilty for accepting the company not wishing to endanger her. I was never alone, and she paid for everything we did. I was blown over by the couple's hospitality.
The curator also took me to see a large fortress, a part of Belgrade that I found most architecturally impressive. Two churches stand on the top of this fortress hill, very important to the nation. One within it has a holy well that brings healing to the worshipers. The second church, to my fascination, had chandeliers entirely made out of full, unexploded bullets.
This artillery-filled church made me think about the fact that maybe Serbs are a warrior nation. I had never thought about it like this.
As we were leaving the churches, I saw—standing upon the tight bridge we had to walk across—a Tibetan Buddhist monk dressed in orange! I smiled and considered him, too, a divine blessing. I asked the curator and him to take a photo with me—my third Buddhist monk encounter. I thought—this exhibition to come must be blessed.
Excitement filled me to be planning an exhibition in the town Marina Abramović was from, because I had, over the years, learned more about her art and life and was always inspired. The lady herself also knew Abramović, having interviewed her during her large solo show in the Contemporary Art Museum in Belgrade.
The curator lady had opened a cultural center - in the middle of Belgrade—where she promoted Croatian culture. She had such influence and will that it was the President of Serbia she had convinced to give her the space and sponsor the idea.
The curator—like myself—was originally from the little seaside town of Kastela. She had such a fierce love for Kastela that it was this that made her invite me to exhibit in Belgrade. She adored Kastela and suffered for them profoundly. She had a little house in Kastela and would go there alone often, without her husband. Seeing she was so sick, I found this unusual.
We talked about my show, what I would paint, how I would bring over the works, what we would exhibit. She went so far as to introduce me to other gallerists and galleries in Belgrade to open doors for me, so once I exhibited there, I could do it in grand style—something she would launch in the press- a journalist as well as a writer and curator, she was well-respected in the social and diplomatic circles of Serbia.
On the last day of my stay, I insisted I paint the couple who were so incredibly kind to me and whom I came to love profoundly and instantly. I painted her reading her published poetry to me in her study, where I had been hosted. She turned out beautiful. I captured her strong and resilient, and through the poetry, I got to know her depths. I found out all about her heart operations, her vulnerability, and her passion.
Second, I painted her husband. He kept mentioning how he missed the sea, and this intrigued me, as they had a house near the sea. But then, this so-far harmless-looking man suddenly said, "I can't go—I can't leave the country, I can't cross the border." I was still confused. I didn't get the problem—the man was healthy. I asked the general questions that I always do about life.
"How did you two meet?"
"At a dance in Croatia, fell in love, and had the daughters."
"What was your job before retirement?"
"Oh, I was in the navy, in the engine."
And I don’t remember the actual words, but he then conveyed to me that he was in the Yugoslav army ship called Split, the one that had bombed the city of Split. He was running its engine at the time.
I had no idea what I was going to stumble upon when I started painting him, and I certainly did not expect this in the least. I suddenly realized that he must be on a list as a war criminal—and that's why he could not leave the country. My heart started beating, I started to get all hot, but this man here had been the kindest, nicest man towards me in the last few days. So I took in a breath, dealt with my triggers, and chose in that moment to forgive all, and hear it.
"Those deserting the army were shot," he explained.
"And then my wife had to leave Split. She was living in Split, because she and our children were suddenly in danger—because I was in the army. They were in danger in Split."
I had pieced the story together from painting them. She, a Croat, married to a Serbian naval engine commander, fled Split and was afraid to return to Croatia for years. On the other hand, in Belgrade, she had been treated well from the start and was given very comfortable housing by the state to accommodate her large family and her husband's army seniority.
I carried on painting. I remembered my grandfather. He was the one who built this ship, called Split, that bombed Split. Here was the man operating the Split ship—during the bombing of Split. That I saw for a few moments from Kastela as a child. And she, a Croat, had to flee the same city of Split, with her children, to be safe from Croats.
It was a little too much for me.
But I carried on painting. I was here for peace. To make art. To share peace, to share friendship. And perhaps, due to Instagram, and media, and the people who follow me locally—I can inspire a new chapter for those who have not been able to get past the war of their youth.
We also got on to the subject of history. This was the most potentially volatile. The lovely old gentleman heard, listened, and then started telling me about a picture of history that was alien to me. About the stupidity and unreasonableness of these little parts of the country wanting to split up from the large. I understood that he seemed to think everything was a large Serbia. Even Croatia. He did not see it as being a separate nation. He did not take into account " to me obvious" "entire history"—which I had studied in Croatia having been a tourist guide, and in England while growing up. My body started getting hot as I felt the only way to get out of this conversation as friends was to stop it. So I changed the course of the conversation and got away from the scary disinformation/propaganda/ideals territory that started these kinds of wars in the first place and justified them to people's logic.
I had no idea where we would get to. It became clear to me how powerful propaganda is, and that history is different depending on where you learn it. I swung the subject elsewhere.
I wanted to keep my experience of this man—so kind to me—an experience of him and feel that we both stood as different chess pieces on the chessboard of history, in the larger picture, out of the control of our own hands. We all have to do the best we can in our circumstances. We all have to keep our families safe. We all believe in something. And sometimes, when our beliefs are so different, it's better to stop talking.
I gave the paintings to the couple, hugged my warm hosts, grateful for their sincere warmth. The old man accompanied me all the way to my coach back to Croatia, kind and attentive to the end. He then went for his long walk around the river—which reminds him of the Adriatic Sea he misses so much and will not see again in this life.
A huge red round sun spread over the hills as I left Belgrade and sent a message to the curator from the bus. I tried to contextualize what I had experienced and share the coincidence of my being the artist in their house and the connections to this ship Split. She got very upset. She said it was a Russian-made boat, not the one made by my grandfather. She defended her husband. Even though what I tried to convey was the realization of it, the synchronicity, and the step that follows—humanness, peace, the reason I would do this show in the first place. Art as a form of friendship and love to share between these countries that were "brothers" but no longer are. She said by sending my observations-that I shut the door with my ass.
My conclusion, though, was respect. I connected all the heart trouble this woman had with the drama she had lived through. She had been in the position of having to choose between her husband and her country, with little children to take care of. She had lived through a lot, and I respected her. I thought it was the pain and the drama that eventually must have inspired her to create this cultural center, where she was working on reconnecting the of two countries and cultures trough art.
Part 3
My ex-husband announced that he had a girlfriend who was going to move into his and our children's home in a couple of weeks. They had met last summer. The children had never before met the woman. I was scared by this—the children not even being introduced and the woman moving in. Aware of his superficiality, I was scared of what values the woman would have. He told me she was from Macedonia.
When the girlfriend moved in with the children, my kids told me that she was from Belgrade. I met the woman—and she was Serbian. She seemed kind. The children liked her, thank God. I told the curator about the woman being from Belgrade and how lucky it was that I had come to Serbia and was so nicely treated by them- so that I would be inspired to be kind to her.
The curator knew the girl precisely. The girlfriend of my ex-husband, moving in with my kids, was a friend of her daughter’s who had practically grown up in the curator's house. She had only the best recommendations and reassurances of the quality of the woman. It made me feel happy—another mad synchronicity! It must be fate.
Part 4
It was summer. My ex-husband came to pick up my kids with his girlfriend in the car. He was smoking a cigarette. The kids got in, and his girlfriend, making a middle finger at me, in front of my two children, pretended to be touching her hair -with the middle finger—aimed at me .
She stared into my eyes, and called out of the car to me, "Come inside, let's lie to one another."
A concept for a painting emerged out this encounter.
The Iranian artist I was hosting in my house for the Kastela art residency said to me when I described it—"It was not synchronicity and coincidence that those two met last summer. They met on line, didn’t they? The curator and she knew all about you and all about him before those two met, didn’t they?" That never would have crossed my mind.
In fact, synchronicity or not—this girl friend- removed the remnants of my ex from my life thoroughly, like a good bleach. And I am thankful to her for it. Also, from what the children tell me, she is kinder and than the paternal grandmother towards them, who had been helping him with the children before she arrived. So for that, too, I am thankful. Im also thankful to have final got to know the ex better for what he truly is since her arrival, as all the many masks came off. I have learnt the most about Balkan ways and expectations and values right out of that marriage, that because of the nurture in Brittan- as well as live I, could observe as separate to me.
I feel qualified to make the most bombastic exhibition about the Balkans ever done.
Full of the bizarre and the beautiful ,the crass, material and the spiritual, savage and dramatic and poetic.
Part 5
Ps. The exhibition in Belgrade never happened.
Part 6.
A London one unfolds .
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