Matthew Webber First Year Review
Matthew WebberFirst Year Review
The Instrumentalization of Contemporary Art in Bosnia-Herzegovina:A New Public Sphere?
Word count: 4992
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Matthew Webber First Year Review
Background and Research Aims
This research aims to explore how and why contemporary art is being instrumentalized to serve
political objectives in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH).
The arts have been given an important role in Bosnia’s post-conflict transition. Specifically, the arts
are often seen as a valuable part of Bosnia’s public sphere, contributing to democratic processes and
Bosnia’s emergence as a modern, European nation-state. However, the ways in which this support is
provided, its effect upon the social functioning of art, and the arts’ efficacy as a public arena have
received little analysis.
Thus, this research poses a series of key questions:
(A) How and why is contemporary art being instrumentalized in BiH?
(B) To what extent does the art sphere of BiH function as a public sphere?
(C) How effective is the art sphere as part of the public sphere?
The contemporary art of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) is a beneficiary of funding and support from
political actors, including Bosnia's own regional and national governments, other European
countries, and supra-national organisations such as the European Union (EU) and UNESCO. It has
taken many forms, including funding provided to individual artists, help in convening art
exhibitions, as well as large projects such as a new national contemporary art museum, the Ars Aevi
Museum of Contemporary Art (see fig. 1).
This support forms of a broader international engagement with BiH's political, economic, social,
and cultural spheres. The justifications given for this involvement are varied. However, commonly
it is asserted that these funds can support the development of Bosnia's civil society, and its nascent
democratic processes, through providing arenas for free engagement with political discourses. This
support can be conceptualised as the creation and/or sponsorship of a ‘public sphere’, a ‘realm of
social life’ to which ‘access is guaranteed to all citizens’, free discussion is conducted, and which
ultimately is able to hold political actors to account (J Habermas 1974:49). The objects, actors, and
processes implicated in the production, dissemination, and reception of contemporary art may be
regarded as a sub-set of this public sphere: the ‘art sphere’. This art sphere may be regarded as a
microscopic representation of the macroscopic public sphere, and an investigation into the
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instrumentalization, functioning and efficacy of the art sphere has potential relevance for
understanding the much larger public sphere.
Art is produced, distributed and received within a complex social system. Therefore, here it is
important to understand the social functioning of the art sphere, and the impact of external support
upon this. The current research builds upon the work of scholars who have sought to conceptualise
the way that the art sphere functions as a social system, and upon prior fieldwork conducted in
Bosnia’s capital city, Sarajevo. This ethnographic engagement followed art works through the art
sphere, and permitted a basic understanding of this to be presented as part of an MA thesis. The
present research seeks to greatly extend this work.
The research questions presented here address three broad categories: (A) the ways in which
political organisations have attempted to instrumentalize the art sphere, including the justifications
given for this and the effects of support upon the functioning of this sphere; (B) the internal
functioning of this sphere, and the extent to which it functions as a free, open public sphere; and (C)
its efficacy as a part of the public sphere, as assessed by its ability to strengthen Bosnia's democratic
processes by the production of prominent public comment.
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Theoretical Background
The tripartite structure of the research questions above means the theoretical background to the
present research may be broken into three themes.
(A) How and why is contemporary art being instrumentalized in BiH?
Question (A) above – how and why contemporary art being instrumentalized in BiH – can be
broken into two questions, the first dealing with the justifications given for arts funding, and the
second on how this affects the art sphere.
An answer to the first of these questions is suggested by the literature produced by organisations
who fund art. In the words of the Office of the High Representative (OHR), an international
organisation which is the primary political authority in the country, this support is designed to
ensure that Bosnia ‘evolves into a peaceful and viable democracy on course for integration in[to]
Euro-Atlantic institutions’ (OHR 2014). A key term in this phrase is ‘democracy’, the strengthening
of which now appears to be the primary focus of international involvement in the country, and
which is envisaged as reliant upon the simultaneous development of a strong civil society. In the
words of Adam Fagan, ‘to suggest that civil society development is anything less than central to the
international community’s state building agenda would be an understatement’ (2005:406).
Identical concerns are visible in the mission statements of organisations funding the arts in Bosnia.
The Soros Open Society Foundation, instrumental in setting up the Sarajevo Centre for
Contemporary Art in in 1996, describes its mission as building ‘vibrant and tolerant democracies
whose governments are accountable to their citizens’ (Open Society Foundations 2014). The
European Cultural Foundation states its core concern is to 're-invigorate European democracy
through cultural actions’ (European Cultural Foundation 2014). The Swiss Cultural Foundation, a
major funder of the arts in Bosnia until 2013, summarises its mission as contributing ‘to the
promotion of democracy and freedom of expression … through employment of cultural
instruments’ (Swiss Cultural Foundation 2014). In the present research, it is proposed that the ‘civil
society’ referred to in these documents can be usefully conceptualised as a public sphere, as
understood by Habermas (1989) and later extended by other scholars (e.g. Calhoun 1992; Fraser
1992).
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The fact that the arts are invoked in this way – as potentially achieving something beyond the
‘mere’ production of art works – is here referred to as the ‘instrumentalization’ of contemporary art.
The use of this term entails an engagement with a number of scholars who have written on the ways
that art has been, or has failed to be, instrumentalized – notably Bourdieu (as summarised in
Crossley 2006), Adorno (1997) and Habermas (1970). It is important to note, in this context, that
running through this work is a normative view that contemporary art is autonomous, or at least
should be so.
This said, a provisional answer to the first half of research question (A) is suggested – that the
instrumentalization of art in Bosnia is an attempt to create and/or extend the public sphere of the
country. The answer to the second half – how this is being achieved – is more complex, as funding
may have complex effects upon Bosnia’s art sphere. Thus, structural transformations in the
operation of the art sphere must be traced.
(B) To what extent does the art sphere of BiH function as a public sphere?
Answering this question therefore requires investigation into the social operation of the art sphere,
as does question (B) above – to what extent does the art sphere of BiH function as a public sphere?
This question can also be broken into two portions; the first concerned with the functioning of the
Bosnian art sphere, and the second with how closely this approximates the operation of a public
sphere. The first sub-question entails an engagement with those scholars who have researched the
functioning of art spheres, including Dickie (1997) and Danto (1964), through Bourdieu (1984) and
Latour (2005), to Heinich (as summarised in Danko 2008; Heinich 2012) and van Maanen (2009).
The extent to which this system operates as a public sphere entails an engagement with those
scholars who have discussed contemporary art as part of the public sphere – particularly Mitchell
(1992), the journal Art and the Public Sphere (2011), and Barrett’sMuseums and the Public Sphere
(2012). A review of this work has permitted three important characteristics of idealised public
spheres to be identified – that they are (a) open to all, (b) arenas for free, undistorted discussion, and
(c) able to hold political actors to account. It is proposed that the extent to which the art sphere
approximates a public sphere may be measured by the extent to which (a) the art sphere is open to
all, and (b) permits free, undistorted discussion of public discourses. Both of these characteristics
have been previously investigated within other art spheres. Assessing the ‘openess’ of the art sphere
entails an engagement with scholars who have drawn attention to exclusionary public spheres
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(Fraser 1992), the ‘bourgeois’ nature of contemporary art (esp. Bourdieu 1984), and also Bosnia’s
prominent discourse on multiculturalism (Hajdarpašić 2008). This aspect of the art sphere will be
assessed using the methodology described below.
Discourses and Systematic Distortion
Defining criteria for the assessment of the second characteristic – the ‘freeness’ of the art sphere – is
more complex. Whilst specific instances of overt censorship may occur, the art sphere may also
contain systemic biases which limit the range of discourse permitted within it; in the terms of
Habermas (1970), it may be ‘systematically distorted’. Following Crossley (2006), it is proposed
that the ways in which this distortion is caused and reproduced are usefully understood in terms of
Bourdieu – that the art sphere may not be entirely ‘autonomous’, but instead be distorted by
economic and political influence (Crossley 2006:98, summarising Bourdieu). To assess the degree
of this, the way in which four key discourses operate within the art sphere will be examined. These
are nation-building, reconciliation, multiculturalism, and Europeanisation. Significant work has
already been undertaken to understand the full range of approaches, techniques and opinions
deployed within these discourses. This work may be summarised as follows;
Nation-building is often stated to be the ultimate aim of the political organisations currently
involved with Bosnia. Whilst there exists a large literature on the process of nation-building,
it is clear that in BiH this process is not the same as that evident in the ‘classic era' of nation-
formation (typified by B Anderson 2006) because of a number of considerations: BiH's
religious, ethnic and linguistic diversity, its prior existence as a republic within the federal
Yugoslavia, and the externally imposed nature of this process. This discourse has been
discussed in the work of Anderson (2006; 1991), Smith (1986), Hobsbawm (1992), Roeder
(2007), Anastasakis (2005), Tali and Pierantoni (2011), and Massari (2005).
Post-conflict reconciliation has also been a major discourse within BiH, especially for
international political organisations. Important to this discourse is an attempt to ‘work
through’ cultural memories of the recent conflict, in order to arrive at an agreed
interpretation of the past. As such, the present research makes use of the work of Halbwachs
(1992), Dragović-Soso (2010), Assman (2010), Bougarel et al (2007), Nora (1989), Wood
(1994), and Young (2009).
Multiculturalism has been a prominent discourse in Bosnia since 1996. The constitution of
the country defines three ‘constituent peoples’ – Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs – and attempts
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to give equal representation to all. This categorisation has been noted as problematic,
especially as it most commonly refers to religious difference, and appears to entrench ethnic
affiliations which were a major factor in the conflict of the 1990s. This discourse has been
explored by Hajdarpašić (2008), Triandafyllidou et al (2012), Bringa (1995),Pinson (1996),
Velikonja (2003), Džihić and Pertritsch (2010), and Duijzings (2007).
‘Europeanisation' denotes a process through which some of the countries of the former
Yugoslavia have stressed the fact that their culture is close (and in some cases
indistinguishable) from that of ‘Europe’. My exploration of this theme has drawn upon the
work of Anastasakis (2005), Massari (2005), Said (1979), Todorova (2009), Rivera (2008),
and Lorente (1998, 2011).
All of these discourses are complex and contested. This said, it is proposed here that long-term
ethnographic engagement in Bosnia will allow them to be analysed, and the way in which they
operate within the art sphere understood.
(C) How effective is the art sphere as part of the public sphere?
The third characteristic of idealised public spheres – that they are able to hold political actors to
account – is here referred to as the efficacy of this sphere, and is the subject of research question
(C). This characteristic of the sphere is key to its definition – in Habermas’ characterisation, the
public sphere is able to mediate between civil society and the state, even if he contends that the
initial ‘bourgeois’ public sphere only possessed this power for a short period (J Habermas 1989).
Defining an observable way to measure this function presents difficulties. A review of the literature
produced by the arts organisations mentioned above is telling – nowhere is there hypothesised a
mechanism by which the arts can hold politics to account. This said, each organisation has in place
processes for the assessment of the success of their interventions, and it is envisaged that in
answering question (C) these will be used. However, this will not be the primary focus of the
present study.
Instead, it is proposed the efficacy of the art sphere can be measured by the sphere’s production of
publicly visible comment on the discourses described above. That is, the ‘efficacy’ of the art sphere
may be regarded as the prominence of its contributions to the wider public sphere. The ways in
which this comment is made available to a wider public, and the process through which it will be
assessed, is detailed below.
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Fig. 2 - Proposed model of the Art Sphere (after van Maanen 2009)
Fig. 1 – Architectural drawing of the future Ars Aevi Museum, by Renzo Piano
Matthew Webber First Year Review
Methodology
Several key concerns have shaped the methodology employed here. Initially, a model for the
operation of the art sphere is required in order to facilitate its investigation. Thus defined, it is
argued that the microscopic nature of the processes occurring within this sphere necessitate close
ethnographic engagement.
Following the Art Work
The design of the following methodology has been influenced by the forms of ethnography
reviewed in Marcus' (1995) Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited
Ethnography. Here, Marcus notes the theoretical background to the emergence of this form of
ethnography, notably the work of Deleuze & Guattari (2004) and Latour's writing on Actor-Network
Theory (2005). Further, Marcus notes that one focus has been on micro-level phenomena as
reflections of macro-level movements and systems (1995:96), itself similar to Latour's conception
of ‘oligoptic' spaces (Harrison 2014:228; Latour 2005:181), which underpins the proposal that art
spheres may be studied as microscopic representations of macroscopic public spheres. More
practically, Marcus notes a variety of ‘chains, paths, threads, conjunctions, or juxtapositions'
(1995:105) which may be used to link sites. In the present study, the ‘chain’ connecting sites is the
movement of art works. This is an approach that mirrors much recent work, including Marcus and
Myers’ edited volume The Traffic in Art and Culture: New Approaches to a Critical Anthropology
of Art (1995), Myer's article on the production of discourse(s) on Aboriginal contemporary art
(1991), and Steiner's (1994) African Art in Transit.
A Proposed Model of the Art Sphere
It is proposed that the art sphere may be modelled as per fig. 2. It is not proposed that this model is
able to capture all of the complexities of the art sphere; instead, it has been designed to facilitate
ethnographic engagement with it by identifying and isolating individual actors. In defining this
model, I have drawn upon a succession of scholars who have attempted to elucidate the structure of
art systems, as mentioned above. Further, I am heavily indebted to the work of van Maanen
(2009) for a concise summary of the similarities and differences between their proposals, and for
the origin of the proposed model. The movement of art works through this model is key to its
constitution – referring to fig. 2, it may be seen that the art work moves from conception in the
bottom-left to critical appraisal in the top-right. In designing the method outlined below, I have
drawn upon both this model and previous fieldwork.
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Participant-observation
It is proposed that long-term ethnographic fieldwork within the art sphere of Sarajevo be
undertaken, with participant-observation as the primary mode of research employed. Several
aspects of the current study necessitate such an approach. The broad scope of the questions above,
and the paucity of published material on them, necessitates a long-term study. First-hand
engagement is necessary due to the microscopic nature of the processes identified by the model
used; the ‘sites’ emergent from this model contain actions unlikely to be discernible by anything
other than a personal engagement with them.
There are several more specific reasons why participant-observation is required. In terms of
‘observation’, the focus of the present project is on public/art spheres, arenas defined as an
extremely broad range of processes, agents and actions, very few of which are visible outside the
spaces in which they occur. One theme of the present research are the way in which products of the
art sphere move from private spaces to public, and another is the ‘openness’ of the art sphere to new
agents. Both these themes necessitate that agents and objects be investigated before the point of
public visibility, which is extremely difficult to achieve without being physically present.
‘Participation’ is required because some processes – applying for grants, selecting artists for
exhibition, responding to art works – require a reflexive approach which can best be facilitated by a
participatory method. Further, aspects of the processes under investigation may not be visible
except from an engaged perspective; notably, the elucidation of the ‘openess’ of the art sphere is
best ascertained from an attempt to become an artist in it, as described in the following section.
Prior Fieldwork
This methodology, and the types of participation described below, have been informed by prior
fieldwork in Sarajevo. Three months of fieldwork were completed in 2013, as part of an MA thesis
which focused on the operation of two of the discourses mentioned above – multiculturalism and
nation-building. During this period, I worked as an artist and writer, producing visual art alongside
artists permanently based in the city, and journalism focusing on the art shows that occurred during
this period. Interviews were conducted with key actors within the sphere, and a similar form of
participant-observation to that proposed here was conducted. During this fieldwork, I engaged with
several organisations prominent within the art sphere, notably Sarajevo Culture Bureau, Crvena and
Collegium Artisticum, engagements which (as below) will continue in the present research. The
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results of this fieldwork have directly affected the current proposal in two ways. Firstly, this
fieldwork has allowed many actors within the art sphere of Sarajevo to be identified (see fig. 3), and
has provided guidance in the design of the model above. Secondly, and beyond those considerations
given above, the fact that this prior fieldwork was participatory facilitated a closer engagement with
the art sphere than would otherwise have been the case, a fact which has informed the decision to
deploy participant-observation as the primary research method in the present research.
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Fig. 4 - Publicity for an exhibition at Collegium Artisticum, showing gallery space
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Fig. 5 - Front page of the Sarajevo Culture Bureau website, showing typical content
Matthew Webber First Year Review
Method
The primary research method employed will therefore be participant-observation. Starting from the
model of the art sphere reproduced above, in which this sphere is divided into three functions (the
production, distribution and reception of art works), three primary forms of participation will be
undertaken. I will work in three roles – as an artist, as an intern in a gallery, and as an art critic. In
addition, two areas will be explored less intensively – I will conduct interviews with those funding
art in order to elucidate their reasons for doing so, and will observe the broader public sphere of
Bosnia in order to ascertain the prominence of the art sphere within it. All of these lines of research
will be undertaken in parallel, beginning in September 2014 and continuing until September 2015,
after which I will return to London to analyse and write-up my findings.
The geographic scope of this fieldwork will be limited to Bosnia’s capital city, Sarajevo. This has
been motivated by a number of considerations, but primarily by the contention that a year's
fieldwork will be adequate to survey the art system of one city, and not more than one. Given this,
Sarajevo, as Bosnia's capital and historic centre, is the obvious choice for a number of reasons.
Previous fieldwork suggests that almost all of the contemporary art produced and/or displayed in
Bosnia is concentrated in Sarajevo, and that it possesses by far the largest art sphere of any city in
Bosnia. Further, as the location of the national government of Bosnia, almost all of the international
delegations to the country, and all of the country’s national newspapers and museums, it is pre-
eminent in the production and circulation of public discourse.
Participation
The three participatory roles will therefore be based in Sarajevo. The first will involve working as a
visual artist in the city, producing work and applying for funding to do so. This role will be
undertaken alongside artists and groups already identified in the city, particularly Crvena (see
http://crvenared.wordpress.com/) who will provide a professional network and support. This group
is a loose collective of 30 artists and writers who acquired a studio and exhibition space whilst I was
conducting my previous fieldwork. I will be working in this studio, participating both in the
production of art works and observing colleagues doing the same.
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The second role will be as an intern in one of Sarajevo’s galleries, the Collegium Artisticum (see
http://collegium.omnitask.me/). This is a relatively small gallery, set up in the 1930s by a group of
then-prominent Sarajevan artists, and located in the iconic Skenderija shopping centre (fig. 4). It
organises exhibitions throughout the year, and hence it is envisaged that in the course of fieldwork I
will be involved in most of the tasks undertaken by an art gallery – selecting art for exhibition,
talking to artists, designing and disseminating promotional material, etc. In addition to this formal
role, I will continue to work with Ars Aevi as they prepare to open the Ars Aevi Museum of
Contemporary Art.
The third role undertaken will be working as an arts journalist, initially for Sarajevo Culture Bureau
(see http://sarajlijacult.com/), an English-language arts and culture website (fig. 5). This role will
involve visiting art shows, writing about them, and helping with the website’s publicity. Following
this initial engagement, it is envisaged that I will write similar articles for further websites,
magazines and newspapers on a freelance basis. All three of these roles have already been arranged.
In addition to these three major roles, two less intensive engagements will be undertaken. The first
will be with individuals working for organisations who fund art in Sarajevo, with whom interviews
will be arranged. The second will be with the broader public sphere of Bosnia. This second
engagement will not seek to elucidate the structure of the public sphere in the way done for the art
sphere, but will instead assess the prominence of the art sphere within the broader public sphere.
Prominence, in this sense, means the level of publicity given to, or public debate generated by, the
art sphere. As such, newspapers, magazines and websites will be checked on an ongoing basis for
content generated or inspired by the art sphere, and the conversations of those not directly involved
in the art sphere will be participated in, observed, and assessed against the same criteria.
As broad a range of actors as possible will be observed. These will be identified by ‘following the
artwork’ in the way described above – tracking paintings, etc., from artists to galleries to newspaper
articles. However, one component of the present research entails assessing the ease of entry into the
art sphere of new actors. As such, it is important to identify those actors who have not gained
visibility even within the art sphere, and by definition this cannot be done ‘backwards’ from
newspaper articles, etc. I will therefore continue to engage with the staff at the Arts Academy of
Sarajevo to identify students who have recently finished education, and are therefore unlikely to
have a large amount of public visibility.
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Observation
The observations to be made during this fieldwork are aligned with the research questions above. In
answering question (A) – How and why is contemporary art being instrumentalized in BiH? – it is
hypothesised, as above, that the ‘why’ of this question may be because of the arts’ role in the
creation of a public sphere. This portion of the question will continue to be investigated through a
review of the relevant literature, and also through interviews with individuals involved in arts
funding. An example finding from this portion of the research may be that those involved in arts
funding have a broader range of objectives than those suggested by the literature produced by the
organisations they work for.
The ‘how’ portion of this question relies partially on the answer to question (B), in that the effects
of instrumentalization will be explored through the ongoing structural transformations of the art
sphere. In all three primary roles I will observe instances of support being given to the art scene,
and note these. Then, in order to understand the effects of this support, the structural changes it
causes upon the art sphere will be observed. It is hypothesised that particular deployments of
funding within the art sphere may have broad-ranging effects upon its operation. For instance, the
opening of the Ars Aevi Museum of Contemporary Art is due to occur during my fieldwork period.
This project has been facilitated by international funding, will add a new and highly prominent actor
to the art sphere, and thus is expected to both affect the movement of art works within Sarajevo and
dramatically increase the prominence of the art sphere.
As above, question (B) – To what extent does the art sphere of BiH function as a public sphere? –
may also be split into two sub-questions. The first – how the art sphere functions – will be answered
by material emerging from all three major roles. The model above will initially be used as a
template to aid in understanding the way the art sphere functions, and observations made as to the
nature of interactions between agents. An example of a preliminary finding of this line of research is
that artists within Sarajevo tend to work within semi-formalised ‘collectives’ rather than as lone
actors, potentially increasing the extent to which the art sphere acts as a public sphere.
The second sub-question – how closely the art sphere approximates a public sphere – will be
assessed by two criteria; how ‘open’ the sphere is to new actors, and how ‘freely’ discourses can be
discussed within it. How open the art sphere is will primarily be addressed by my engagement as an
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artist, and my observation of students attempting to enter the art sphere. My own ease of entry into
the art sphere will also produce much material useful in answering this question, as will observation
of how and why particular artists or art works are included or excluded from progressing through
the sphere. For example, the literature review undertaken suggests that the post-conflict codification
of ethnic difference into three religious categories (Serb, Croat, Bosniak) potentially limits the
ability of artists with other ethnicities (Jewish and Atheist, in particular) to enter the art sphere. The
extent to which this is the case will be one of the outcomes of this line of observation.
The ‘freeness’ of the art sphere will be assessed by assessing whether any of the discourses
described above are distorted within the art sphere. The ways in which these discourses operate in
the art sphere will be observed across all sites of engagement, and compared both to the
characterisation of them given above, and also to observations made through my engagement with
the broader public sphere. For example, previous fieldwork suggests the same tripartite codification
of ethnic difference mentioned has been replicated within funding provided to the art sphere,
predisposing the art sphere to reproduce this particular interpretation of multiculturalism, and
setting it at odds with some other commentators. This is the type of contention to be tested through
this line of observation, which will ultimately seek to assess the degree to which, and in which
directions, the art sphere is distorted.
Question (C) – How effective is the art sphere as part of the public sphere? – will be assessed
primarily by my engagement as an arts journalist, but also by my less intensive engagement with
the public sphere. The third column on the model of the art sphere above, ‘reception’, may be
regarded as the structures and processes required for aspects of the art sphere to cross into the
public sphere. This function is here used as a way of measuring the efficacy of the sphere. Through
engagement as a journalist, I will observe the ways in which these structures and processes are
constituted and operate. Through my engagement with the public sphere, I will observe how
prominent the art sphere is within the wider pubic sphere. This will be done through an assessment
of the level of publicity achieved by actors in the art sphere, but also by the level to which this is
discussed in broader society. For example, previous fieldwork suggests that there in 2013 the arts
had little prominence within the public sphere of Bosnia, with little coverage by national magazines
and newspapers. If this is still the case, it it hypothesised that this situation severely limits the
efficacy of the art sphere to ‘hold politicians to account’, although further observation may disprove
this conjecture.
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Thus, the three participatory roles proposed here each address one or more of the three research
questions described above, and will allow a detailed understanding of the structure of the art sphere
of Bosnia to be achieved. Ultimately, the present research will produce an understanding of the
extent to which contemporary art in Bosnia has been instrumentalized by political actors, the effects
of this on the art sphere of the country, and whether it is legitimate to talk of contemporary art in
Bosnia as a new public sphere.
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Work Completed and Planned
May – July 2013
Fieldwork in Sarajevo for MA Thesis Throughout: Study of Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian language (conversational fluency achieved)
August 2013
MA Thesis completed;Art of the Epoch: National Discourse and Contemporary Art in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina(14725 words)
November 2013
Paper #1 completed;Non-alignment, Open Borders, Federalisation: The Effect of Yugoslavian Foreign and Domestic Policy on its Art and Museums(5541 words)
December 2014
Paper #2 completed;The Role of Collective Memory in Reconciliation and Nation-building in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH)(4025 words)
February 2014
Paper #3 completed;MSU and Ars Aevi:Ex-Yugoslav Politics and National Contemporary Art Museums(9935 words)
March 2014 Paper#4 completed;Mapping the Art System: Methodological Proposals(4458 words)
May 2014 Paper#5 to be completed;Contemporary Art and the Public Sphere
Current Research Overview completedPreparation for 1st Year Review
June - September 2014
Completion of further papers,With topics TBC with Supervisor
September 2014
Begin fieldworkAll types of participant-observation described above will be undertaken in parallel for a period of one year. During this period I will therefore be:
- Working as an artist alongside Crvena, - Working as an intern in Collegium Artisticum, - Writing articles for Sarjevo Culture Bureau, - Arranging and conducting interviews with those involved in arts funding, - Undertaking more general observations of the public sphere of Bosnia.
September 2015
Finish fieldworkReturn to London to analyse and write-up results.
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