Greeting / Pozdrav

Video performance ‘Salute’ was created in June of 2014. in the abandoned iron factory space of ‘Željezara Sisak’. In 1990. I moved to Sisak as a 15-year-old in anticipation of the excitement and youth of high school. The war and isolation due to illness that struck me made it impossible to even sniff the city of Sisak. After 13 long years, happy circumstances in my life put me in a position of saying goodbye to isolation and disease, and war was also already long behind us. It seemed like a fairy tale when spoken aloud. But the story is different. The city was destroyed. Earlier, people were barely breathing because of the heavy industry and pollution. Now they were barely breathing because there was nothing. Eager for sunshine and getting to know the city, I could now only explore human depression and the emptiness of a plucked city. I only knew how to … leave. In this video performance, I imagine coming back to Sisak. I try to come to terms with the city and my personal history after years of absence. City of Sisak could be any city. Lying for years due to illness, isolated from people, the world, the city Must it be the same in any city? To stand up after a long illness Still, I believe it cannot be the same in any city. City of Sisak. It had no air. I did not breathe with it. I went away from it, I ran … To search for other cities. That breathe. Or with whom I breathe. By mistake, I took anger with me. Anger for not knowing how to change the cities that do not breathe. So for a moment, I reappeared. I was hitting the walls that echoed, and the city yelled through my ears. And I still do not know how to help it, how to breathe with it. I’m leaving. Again. Vesna Mačković