The trip is becoming ever more surreal as we continue to enjoy so many good times against a backdrop of increasingly unbelievable political events back home. We’ve talked Brexit with our hosts but, perhaps surprisingly, after the shock of the initial result the topic seems to have died down: the huge consequences of the result and the shockwaves to come have yet to ripple outwards.
And so for now we can only continue our travels and catch up properly when we get home. We are only getting intermittent updates and so it can feel sometimes like we are fiddling whilst Rome burns, but equally we feel strongly that it is vital that our art connections continue to be made as one way of replacing the cynicism of politics with something more positive, creative and affirming.
So we leave the wonderful hospitality of Elisa Vladilo in Italy and join Sara Lerota in Bosnia Hercegovina for three more days of artiness. Sara writes:
“Yes, we are making a connection between the UK and Bosnia and Herzegovina now, but it was always a connection of thoughts, of ideas, of people that was our primary focus since the first time we got in contact, three years ago through Collect Connect organisation and a wonderful mutual friend Alban Low. It is such a pleasure to host my dear friends and colleagues Robert and Rebecca here in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to see that our collaboration has reached the point where we are connecting artists from all over Europe! The power of art is bringing us all together and it is wonderful to be a witness of such an amazing process and to able to contribute too.
I´ve been a part of Art Language Location for the last three annual exhibitions and every year brings something new, every years elevates the quality of the event to a higher level and enables us to move forward. I visited Cambridge last October and meeting the Art Language Location committee in person was a turning point in our collaboration since we definitely confirmed that distance means nothing when ideas and thoughts are close and compatible. This week we will meet in Dubrovnik (Croatia) and start a journey through the regional art world of this part of Europe. For the next few days we will have the pleasure to meet deans from art academies in Bosnia and Herzegovina as representatives of official art/education institutions, the representatives of national art centres and art organisations and, most importantly, we will be glad to have direct conversations with local and regional artists so we could all explore their perspective on overseas collaborations and potential mutual projects.
This step is just one of the first steps of a very long and fruitful collaboration and I already look forward to our future challenges! The world is just as small or big as we imagine it to be. ;)”
Thanks Sara!
