Culture

Serbian artist turns Mladic's war journal into anti-war statement

Belgrade, Jul 2 (EFE / EPA) .- (Camera: Andrej Cukic) Art against negationism and oblivion. Just before the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, an artist has transformed Ratko Mladic's war journal - the military leader convicted of genocide for the massacre - into an artwork against war.Four hundred pages of the Bosnian war journal (1992-95) of the former Bosnian Serb commander have been carefully recreated with ink drawings by Serbian artist Vladimir Miladinovic, which displays them in Belgrade until July 29 in an exhibition titled "Diary".FOOTAGE OF THE WORK.SOUNDBITES OF ARTIST VLADIMIR MILADINOVIC.Translation: -What I’m doing is dealing with some kind of reviving the documents that already served its purpose and what intrigues me is the possible potential of the remains in a different field of modern visual art-So, throughout the diary one can actually recognize that very disciplined military language of JNA (Yugoslav people's army) trained staff which speaks a lot about the attention the socialist Yugoslavia schooled its staff that were later to be a part of its own toppling.-My deep belief is that art can actually, in not anything else, show the things that happened in the past and make it possible for us to move to better relationships in the present and the future.-Actually the material is in front of us, but the question is are we capable of facing the material.