Chaos and Communication
Ibrahim Spahic
Director, Sarajevo Biennial

The tenth jubilee Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean was held in Sarajevo, in the summer of 2001. The project was presented for the first time in 1994 during the seventh edition of the Biennial in Lisbon, at the meeting of the International Committee of the Biennial.
On behalf of the International Peace Center, Festival Sarajevo "Sarajevo Winter," and the mayor of the city of Sarajevo, I invited artists and cities of Europe and the Mediterranean to hold, after its liberation, the Biennial in Sarajevo-the city which had always been nucleus and crossroad of cultures and civilizations, as well as an excellent nursery and host to artists from all over the world. All of this happened at the time when under the shield of the Festival Sarajevo "Sarajevo Winter," inspired by the "Sarajevo, Cultural Center of Europe," artists from 150 European cities and cities from all over the world organized literary evenings, staged performances in theaters, on platforms and streets, supporting Sarajevo, its citizens and artists who were present in the besieged city and despite everything organized the Festival. For them this meant not just a confirmation that they were still alive, but also the need to express, in an authentic way, their relationship to the contemporary world which was witnessing, through the eyes of cameras, the murdering of the city and its citizens every day.
The mayors of Lisbon and Antwerp decided-together with ministers of culture of the European Union, European Parliament, European Council and UNESCO, and signatures from 11,000 artists and intellectuals from all over the world-to support Festival Sarajevo "Sarajevo Winter," through the project "Sarajevo, Cultural Center of Europe" to be held from December 21, 1993 until March 21, 1994.
Participants and organizers of Avignon's Festival and the Festival of Europe and the World, confirmed through words and actions supporting Sarajevo, that they belonged to a family of people who have a strong will for justice and freedom.
"Do something together with us and not for us," I stated in my proposal for Sarajevo to be one of the future organizers of Biennial. I presented a detailed map of young artists from Bosnia Herzegovina, with an invitation to the artists and organizers of the Biennial and their guests to become actively involved in the shaping of the space for the new generations who would be building the bridges between the Mediterranean and Europe in the most creative, artistic way.
In 1997, during the eighth edition of the Biennial in Turin, the candidates for the ninth edition were, among other cities, Sarajevo and Rome. I made an arrangement with Luca Bergamo, representative of the City of Rome, to have Sarajevo and Rome presented as the hosts for the ninth and the tenth editions of Biennial and organizers of six workshops for 100 artists from the countries members of the Biennial Committee.
The Assembly of BJCEM in Turin approved this proposal. In 1998 we organized the six workshops in Sarajevo, in cooperation with Alessandro Stillo. The 9th edition of the Biennial was held in Rome in 1999, and the tenth jubilee edition was held in Sarajevo in 2001.
The City of Rome and all of the participants of the Biennial accepted-through the protocol with Sarajevo-a project called "Concert Hall Sarajevo."
This project was also the first Bosnia-Herzegovinian international competition for the design of the Concert Hall, in which over forty countries took part.
The pre-selection committee reviewed 400 projects. The B-FLAT Group was selected: Denis Balent, Andrew Wai-Tat Yau, Katarina Larsdotter, Jonas Lundberg, Steve Hardy and Claudo Lucchesi. The Center of the City of Sarajevo/Marijin Dvor/ would form the new urban look of Sarajevo with the Concert Hall. This would also be helped by the building of Ars Aevi Contemporary Art Museum, in the immediate vicinity of the National Museum and the campus of the University Center of Sarajevo.
This extraordinary project entered the regulation plan of development for Sarajevo and the site planned for the building of the Concert Hall was purchased. It was expected that after construction, with the help of European and other international countries and foundations, this would become one of the most important musical centers of Europe and the Mediterranean.
Sarajevo needed the Biennial to be held immediately after the war and after the besiegement of the city so that the entire community of the city-from the Kozja Cuprija bridge to the Roman bridge, on the left and the right side of the Miljacka River-would move into the twenty-first century with a new attitude towards the world of art, as well as a new attitude about the experience that Sarajevo was going through. Therefore, it was logical that the 10th Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean should be organized under the title "Chaos and Communication."
Some of the most interesting aspects of the 10th Biennial are the stories from the squares and streets, and a completely new cultural and sociopolitical climate during the Biennial, as well as after it. Sarajevo has, thanks to the reaction of the new generation of creators, become a stage for the best and most creative projects in the areas of Theater, Design, Fashion, Film, Video, Publishing and Music.
It is quite interesting that for the first time in the history of the Biennial a book was published, under the title Chaos and Communication, in which all of the texts were in the authors' mother tongues. This solicited special attention and interest of the readers and the Sarajevo audience during the literary nights in Svrzo house. In all that chaos they understood one other perfectly, and the spirit of Mediterranean was omnipresent. At the same time, awakening, ancient image and innovations were taking place through gastronomy performances of Italian cuisine in the ruin of the Youth Hall in Skenderija Center. From the magnificent view of the city, from the Jajce barracks, a magical fashion show was organized, with models coming out of exhibition spaces-soldiers' dormitories of the almost totally abandoned military barracks which had been transformed into a center of modern art for the event. At the same time, the universities in Milan and Sarajevo connected two far points of the city with the Trans Saraj cycling project and left an indelible trace testifying how it is possible to change the drowsy left side of Miljacka-where in the years to come it would be open for the At Mejdan Festival Sarajevo "Sarajevo Winter 2005"-into the magic of twenty-one gardens of art.
In a city in which different sieges and delusions kept interchanging during the centuries, everything was untranslatable and, at the same time, understandable among the artists, guests and citizens of Sarajevo in the year 2001. Everyone knew what the CDA space was used for and why the galleries, theaters and cinemas were all full.
The 10th Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean will also be remembered for having a Mediterranean orchestra gathered in Turin presenting the cultural and musical traditions of the Mediterranean marking the future encounter of the Biennial in Sarajevo. This was an almost surreal ethno-musical meeting held in the National Theater of Sarajevo, attended by musicians from all over the Mediterranean and Southeast Europe and during which they demonstrated the importance of culture and art for the better understanding among different nations and life worthy of man. Lord Russell Johnson, President of the Parliament of the Council of Europe, participated in this project as one of the leaders of the modern world who accepted the challenge of new generations of artists and their miraculous creative energy which is vital for the necessary changes of the relationships towards the Mediterranean, our cradle.
Thanks precisely to that creative energy and complete mutual respect for the cities and countries of Europe and the Mediterranean, in Sarajevo, after many years of work, an International Association of the Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean had been formed. Its legal seat was in Brussels and its operative center in Turin, the Olympic city, which, just like Sarajevo, has faced the challenges of this twenty-year project with the young artists whose encounter in Barcelona in 1985, confirmed its value.
The Biennial of Sarajevo has promoted the meeting in Athens and confirmed the importance of the existence of the Association, which after Sarajevo has won over new members thanks to its unique cultural policy for the youth that it has been conducting in the area of Europe and the Mediterranean.
Today in Bosnia Herzegovina interest is being shown for the Biennial by young people from Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Mostar, Tuzla, Sanski Most, Bihac. The 10th Biennial of Young Artists has given a chance to young people to find their way out of chaos and restore normal communication.