Clothes for Death

I have finally found a bit of time and space to try and focus on finding a few words. The last few days have been eventful…

I have been talking to many, many people about the project and about the search for women who prepare clothes in which they wish to be buried. I have been showing the photographs from the last research trip, and the feedback has been very encouraging.
The process of research has developed an interesting dynamic: other people are asking other (mostly) women if they know someone who has prepared such clothes. This vast network of women is expanding and I feel as though my work is filtering through to many people, in this different format, it is becoming a performative relational work.
Conversations have sprung up here and there as women discuss their memories of their mothers, aunties, neighbours etc having such clothes prepared, as they discuss the portrait of women in photographs and their almost nostalgic view on the aesthetic of their grandmothers which they recognise in some of the photographes, the domestic spaces too evoke so many memories and feelings and more…
I went and spoke to women’s group ‘Duga’ (Duga is a non-governmental organisation which organises a range of activities for and by women). One of the women mentioned that her late aunt had prepared everything including a small mirror, thread and a needle, about which she is still perplexed. We had a good chat, and they said they will ask around and find out.

There have also been a few misunderstandings as some people thought I was looking for traditional folk clothes and women to be photographed in their ethno village surrounding. I nearly went on a long bus trip into town where very generously a group of colleagues (of a friend) offered to help. A phone call later and I had to cancel the trip because they didn’t realise I was looking specifically for the ‘funeral clothes’ (as some people also call it), and when I explained the nature of the research they said that this was too sensitive and they were uncomfortable asking on my behalf. This happened again yesterday as I went to a village near Banja Luka. A friend of my mother is a doctor, who asked one of her patient if she could help me out. This woman then collected from the village all the traditional folk clothes. When I turned up at her house, after we all had a cup of very strong black coffee, she showed me the room where she laid out all the traditional folk garments. It was very sweet of her to have gone into so much trouble and I had to be very sensitive not to offend her in saying that I was specifically looking for clothes which has someone personally prepared. Tactfully, I did explain myself, but also I photographed the traditional folk garments she laid out – there were beautiful pieces of clothing, all handmade and hand-woven. She had also arranged for a man in the village who collects old traditional objects to show them to me. I really liked his one string instrument called ‘gusle’ which he made himself from the wood; on one end of ‘gusle’ he carved a symbol of the birth of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (also known as SFRJ) and on the other end he carved a church from his place of birth. I tried to gather which one came first, as in his ‘gusle’ a whole history could be sung – from religion to socialism and back – but his answer was a bit slippery…I think the socialist sign came first but am not sure. (Gusle is a traditional instrument used for singing songs of historical and epic content, so it is fitting to have such symbols carved into it).

I wanted to speak directly to one of the women from the village who have ‘donated’ folk clothes for the shoot, as I was hoping that I still may find that one of them has prepared such clothes. After driving through muddy and narrow road we reached one house, but the woman there said that she is too young for preparing clothes for death. But a woman we visited in the second house said she has such clothes and agreed to be photographed. Yes, I was so pleased to have persevered in my detective work. Her clothes were all kept in a yellow ‘Camel’ bag, and were prepared by her daughter in law who lives with her son in Switzerland. I photographed her and her clothes, and filmed a short interview about her preparation, and reaction to a very organised daughter in law. In my previous journey I tended to photograph clothes and then portrait but now I am trying to capture them all together, within the domestic setting.

I decided that I won’t post images of the women and their clothes yet, as it still all too fresh, plus images I have available are from a small digital camera whereas the final piece will be photographs from the medium format camera. This is also a new experience as I recently purchased Mamiya 7ii and am absolutely loving it. I am a bit concerned about the flimsiness of the negative as it comes in these rather open looking roles which when changing the film I very carefully take out and keep in a dark box. It should all hopefully work out as I did some tests before going on the project to try out different negs, exposures, camera etc which was a very useful exercise.

And finally to add to this lengthy blog that I have been thinking more about my ambivalent relationship to blogging and I think it has something to do with the fact that I am working on a sensitive and personal subject, many people are involved in either taking part or helping me to find the participants and I feel huge responsibility of being fare to everyone involved. Negotiating the personal nature of the project with the very public nature of the web site is part of the tension of blogging that I feel and will see how I negotiate these spaces.

Tomorrow I am taking a train to Mostar, where I will be picked up by an Orthodox priest with whom I will be stationed for couple of days. He has kindly offered to help with the project. I am so looking forward to this new unknown chapter.

I wrote the last post with a heavy heart. Yesterday, as I was walking to the part of town where I grew up, to visit my father, I felt a sense of ease come upon me at the thought of acknowledging the impossibility of writing about complex emotions that being here and doing the project evokes in me. Perhaps there is an inherent failure in trying to conjure up the words when they are not ready, when I am not ready.

I am still formulating so many thoughts and digesting events of this week. So much happened and I am forever amazed at the resourcefulness and generosity of people here. The first couple of days were spent contacting various people, mostly speaking to women who are my mother’s customers and friends. Everyone has been so open and willing to help out.

One of my mother’s friends said that her mother in law has mentioned recently about the clothes she has prepared. But, when she asked her mother in law if she would be willing to have the clothes photographed she refused. And this is one of the challenges of this project, the subject of death is a sensitive one and therefore asking people to ask their grandmothers, mothers, aunties, neighbours is a tricky one, and clothes for death are personal and intimate belongings, therefore not many people want to share them with others then the family.

Having said that, today I visited Marija, who is going to be 94 on the 18th April, she was born in 1913! I was introduced to her by a friend who is a nurse, and who as part of her job is visiting elderly at home. She also helped me last year with the project. Marija is being cared for at home, living with her family. During the civil war she had to escape her home and come as a refugee, walking from Sanski Most to Banja Luka (around 80km). Amongst very few things she brought with her is a dress she sewed herself (she used to be a seamstress) and which she wants to wear when she dies. I photographed her with her dress laid out next to her…I also recorded some her remarkable life stories…Having survived three! wars, she remembers (however patchy) various armies, regimes and changes of the governments. Her grandson, who is a journalist, set next to her, and prodded her to say various bits of stories…the one that really stays with me is from WW2, about a German soldier who ran into her house and started crying; she was startled by this and hid in one of the rooms, when this soldier had a good cry he told her to keep quiet and went outside…

I’d like to share some musings on 'nostalgia' I just had with a friend of mind Ansuman Biswas, who is currently in India, on a an Arts Council England Research Placement at HP Labs, India. His blog is http://diffractionbangalore.blogspot.com/

Hi Margareta,
What you say early on about nostalgia for 'home' really resonated with me. What happens when you visit somewhere without that halo of emotion, and start relating to it as just another place? I certainly felt that happening as I came back to India last week. After less than three weeks in London!

HI Ansuman,
glad it resonated with you, yes, it is interesting that lack of nostalgia this time. The transition from one place to another seems more seamless…and I feel more grounded…I thought that meant that I am not ready, but maybe I was more ready then any other time?
I was thinking that this time you are actually living in India, rather then visiting, so it is more real, also more close, more intimate…Is nostalgia a way of keeping the idea of home intact whilst on some level not engaging with the reality, with what's really there?

Hi Margareta,
I constantly want what I haven't got. I'm surrounded by fields of desire. In fact I'm nothing but the landscape. As I realize that the greenness of the grass, on the other side of a fence I build, is only an optical illusion, I learn to stay put. What's left when I'm not looking somewhere else? That's when the real work starts. But that's only if I can avoid the incessant hurdling of fences in
search of the ultimate green grass. Or the stagnation of nostalgia, which as you rightly say, can be a buffer against reality.

All this applies, I think, not just to place, but also to action, insofar as all action is based on desire. With each new satisfaction, if addiction can be wrestled down, the craving for more may be understood and quenched.
Eventually the wisest thing to do is nothing.
Takes a lot of hurdling to get there though. Which is I guess why we're travelling the world. Have fun!

Hi Ansuman,
That is beautiful said, I can feel the meditation just by reading your words. Doing nothing for me is about creating connection with stillness which is so important in order to see how it all works, nostalgia, desire, action…But it is an ongoing challenge for me to 'do nothing', especially here, with so many undercurrents present. I can feel them – childhood memories, familiar smells, learnt behaviour, all of it has such power. It is seductive and repulsive at the same time. There are so many deep deep levels in which to understand 'going home' and 'being home', and yes, it takes a lot of hurdling…But like you say maybe that's why we keep travelling…

This one is going to be a long one as I try and catch up…

Arrived to Zagreb, Croatia on Thursday afternoon, after an amusing flight where I sat next to two! Pilots who usually fly for Pakistan Airways, this time they were on route to Dubrovnik for a worldwide pilot conference (imagine 2000 pilots in one place, who will fly the planes then?). As they took seriously their role of explaining to me the intricacies of flying, I wasn’t sure if this newly acquired knowledge will finally liberate me from my schizophrenic relationship to flying.

In Zagreb, I checked in a nice Youth Hostel situated right next to the large and imposing chocolate factory ‘Kras’. As I was approaching the hostel, I could smell the sweet almost sickly smell of caramel in the air, and wandered if people who live here eat too much or none chocolate, as I doubt one can stay unaffected by this giant. (talking of chocolate, the mint chocolate went down a treat; maybe I should buy some Kras chocolate and bring it back to London as souvenirs)

Friday was filled with meetings. I had a chat with one of the curators of PM Gallery, an artist run space, in an unusual building, usually referred as ‘the mosque’. Its history is interesting, it was built following the plan of sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. In 1941, by a decree of the president of the Independent State of Croatia (Ante Pavelic known for its links to Nazi Germany), the House was closed and transformed into a mosque. Stucco decorations and three minarets were added following the project of the architect S. Planic. The museum of People's Liberation was founded in 1945.The minarets were pulled down in 1949. The returning of the building to the artists was requested with the exhibition called Documents-Arguments, and the request was fulfilled in 1991. The reconstruction of the building started in 2000.
For more info on the gallery and photos following the historical transformation please visit their site http://www.hdlu.hr/AboutUs.html

Had a fascinating meeting with Ethnologist at the Museum of Ethnography, Zagreb. She told me that in the early 1900 pregnant women would make a procession with their best clothes or their wedding dress before giving birth as in those days birth represented a risk, a potential death. This stayed with me, that women lived with that choice and vivid possibility of dying in order to give birth to a child. How many women gave their lives so that we as a human race continue? I almost feel uncomfortable putting it in such heroic term, but it is a form of heroism, no?!

This was followed by a nice lunch with Renata whom I met last time at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore, and who has been very supportive of my project, even faxing me some info she dug out during one of her own research trips to Sarajevo. She is a sharp writer, so I snapped up a book, co-edited by her, titled ‘Od Roda do Naroda’, translated as ‘From Gender to the Nation’, which sounds really interesting. I also snapped up a book ‘Ethnology of Proximity: Poetics and Politics of Contemporary Fieldwork’, which I hope will be helpful in terms of research and fieldwork that is ahead of me. The Institute of Ethnology and Folklore is a brilliant snazzy organisation publishing timely and reflexive research on the contemporary societal matters. http://www.ief.hr/

I wanted to see a few more galleries, and as they are open until 8pm! I was able to visit gallery Miroslav Kraljevic, who was showing work by a young artist from Turkey Ahmet Ogut. Curious work, exploring masculity or rather the impossibility of masculity – especially in a video piece ‘The Death Kit Train” where a large group of man are pushing a car, or rather few man are pushing a car and the rest of them are pushing those which are pushing the car. www.g-mk.hr

Another space worth checking out is Nano Gallery, which is hidden inside an archway but central enough to be found. It is a small space currently showing contemporary art projects, which are existing solely on the internet, their web page is www.artenativa.hr/reload.htm
I ended up talking with the gallery assistant and it transpired that she also lived in London in the early 1990’s. We started chatting more and really got on, ended up being joined by one of her friends and going for a drink in the nearby bar. Both of them were disillusioned by the current situation in Croatia and felt that the nationalism and provincialism were still very present. She regretted that she came back from London, and I almost felt a tinge of guilt for having stayed in London. We had a thoroughly good chat about everything including the Croatian Venice Biennale scandal – having changed their mind at the last minute about whom they want to represent Croatia. (first it was going to be David Maljkovic but then under shady circumstances it was decided that it will be artist Ivana Franke). I am not aware of their work, so will look them both up!

I should just add another great space which I managed to visit, it is Nova Gallery ran by a very interesting curatorial group WHW (What, How & for Whom) which were showing an exhibition temporary services motherfuckers www.temporaryservices.org + some info about WHW http://www.projekt-relations.de/de/explore/zagreb/veranstaltung.php

All this in one day and I was ready for a trip towards my sweet, sickly chocolate factory.

The following day I had enough time to meet with Dona, whom I met last Autumn. She is an Anthropologist writing an MA thesis on Sefardic Jewish women who came as refugees from Sarajevo to Zagreb, in the ‘last war’, and who live in the home for elderly people. When we met last year, we talked about possibly working together, if it transpires that the women she is in contact with have prepared such clothes and of course if they are willing to take part. Dona updated me that she spoke with the caretaker who will find out and who will this week get back to Dona if and when it will be possible to interview and photograph the women. She also explained that the Care home has taken upon itself to make special white gowns and white scarves for those women who express a wish in being buried in that way. She will find out who sews them and perhaps there is more to it…So, I should know this week if I will be going to Zagreb for a few days.

One month does not feel enough for all the research I want to do.