First I saw his work, then I met the artist. Radenko Milak (as part of "Protok") was running a project in 2010. It was established in a former factory. I had been there to meet people who survived the camp in Omarska.

Two years before they had been working on a "Revival of local artistic scene". I was curious about the strategies of artists in a post war-society in a country like Bosnia i Hercegovina.

What I did not know: I was going for some strange lessons what it means, being a "western guest" in a meeting of Bosnians, Croats and Serbs to talk about what had happened in that region around the City Prijedor. (Most of my folks dont have any idea, what names like Keraterm, Kozarac or Omarska mean.)

To be honest, I did not like, what I had to learn. But it changed my attitude while following the debates over the years after those days in "republika srpska". I liked the exhibition very much and before I met Radenko or even knew who he is, I was impressed by this line of pictures.

It had been such a big effort of them to run this event. No heating, low light in this big building. These artists were really going hard for their goal. I do not know, what made one of them use the german word "Verantwortung" which means "respondibility". In my language "Verantwortung" contains "antwort". That means: Answer.

This was the first time I got closer to a debate about wartime. It has not been possible the years before. The most strange experience I made in Slovenia, where I had some talks with people of the art scene and to me they seemed or pretended to know nothing about the most crucial points of the 1990ies.

Now, as I found out, Radenko Milak [link] is not only working permanently on subjects like that, he also focused on the assasination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914 as a remarkable moment for Europe. I asked him to join our project and I am glad he answered:

[BIG SIZE]

hi martin,

cool, I'm interested in the issue of 28th June 1914, the Sarajevo assassination ... it was my series paintings. [...] keep in touch

[südost: übersicht]

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