New blog!

I lived in Mostar from fall of 2007 to spring of 2011. I decided to start a new blog to reflect the fact that I am no longer "Katie in Mostar"... It's called Pilgrimography, and it's a documentary blog following my adventures in small town eastern Bosnia and beyond! I am so excited to share my new blog with you, please come and visit!

With great sadness I learned last night that Nisvet Dzanko had passed away. Dzanko was a geography teacher turned TV star, the most unpretentious big celebrity in Bosnia. He was known for his show "Positive Geography", where he traveled all over the country, from big cities to tiny villages, listening to people's stories along the way. Truly kind hearted, patient, humble, witty and always insightful and wise. He was universally beloved; he could speak with equal ease to the Mayor of Sarajevo or the old woman selling onions in a small town market. I am so thankful to have had the chance to get to know him. He was such a great support to me for the brief time I worked on Bosnian Federal TV, always taking the time to encourage me and show me the way. The video clip below actually came about because I was so nervous on camera and so he "featured" me in his weekly video as a guest interviewer, to ease me into the work. So typical of him. Hvala ti, Dzanko, na svemu. Puno nam nedostajes!

Street ads

A campaign in Belgrade is making a splash with its poster "I evict Roma (gypsies) from your neighborhood"- like a racial "exterminator" service. The Belgrade city government, as many other governments in Europe and in the region, occasionally "cleans up" informal settlements by evicting all the residents-- this happened in Mostar in 2010. Other slogans from the campaign so far include: "I like your statuses on Facebook"; "Guaranteed prevention of student protests with simple false promises"; "I delay court cases until further notice". Very provocative... and anonymous. The group calls itself "Narodni Oglas", The People's Advertisement.

On the way to school

Mostar's own Little Red Riding Hood-- a small girl was attacked by a pack of dogs on her way to school. Amazingly, she survived, although she lost one ear and is covered with bites. She is a student from a Roma community where I volunteered with a Novi Most project. Mostar has a large stray dog population and is required by law to establish an animal shelter or at least a pound, which still does not exist. In the past, they solved the problem by shooting problematic dogs, but dog lovers and animal rights activists in the city formed a campaign last year around a dog who was killed this way right in the city center, so they have now stopped that practice. However, they have not yet built the animal shelter. Implementation gap.

Good Friday

20 years after the war, 11541 chairs for each of the citizens killed in Sarajevo during the siege. So moving. (How might a tribute in Mostar have looked?)

Informal settlements

Cities use illegal ghettos to retain control of prime real estate.

Residents of illegal settlements in constant danger of eviction

Sefa Hajrusi, 34 and a father of two, is one of 15 families who will receive housing in 2012 through a project sponsored by Mostar city administration, Swiss Caritas and the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees (MHRR).

Kathryn Hampton (AbrašMEDIA)

However, he already has a house, one which he built himself several years ago on land owned by the city. There are about 50 other families, also squatters, who have homes in the Hajrusis’ neighbourhood.

Meanwhile, the land parcel to be used for the housing project is home to another large com-munity of squatters in improvised dwellings.

The city takes no responsibility for providing services to the residents, most of whom are without running water or electricity, and on occasion enforces its right to evict the residents, as did Mostar city administration in 2010, when it evicted approximately 40 families for the storage needs of the public road service. None of the families were provided with alternative accommodation or land.

(continued... http://abrasmedia.info/english/english/residents-illegal-settlements-constant-danger-eviction)

Where has RTV Mostar gone?

RTV Mostar, a local TV station where I worked for several months as a video editor in 2010, has completely disappeared without a word... During my time there, a close partnership with new, commercial news station TV1 had begun in earnest, with constant exchanges of staff and programming. RTVMo gradually lost many main staff members to the Sarajevo TV1 studio and its daily news report was substituted by the TV1 news anchors, however, RTV Mostar retained its own channel and flagship program "Grad" ("City"), a 6 pm, much-watched talk show covering current events in Mostar.

Many employees, including almost all the people I worked with, who were longtime employees of RTVMo, have been fired. Only a few remain in the studio, where they occasionally file "Mostar" stories to the main TV1 studio. The Mostar regulatory agency says that the disappearance of RTVMo is due to technical difficulties.

RTV Mostar, which broadcast throughout the war, and after the war remained the only multi-ethnic TV station in Herzegovina, has vanished without a trace, without a word of explanation.


http://www.starmo.ba/mostars/item/4316-gdje-je-nestao-tv-mostar?.html

Shelter at Abrasevic

OKC Abrasevic has turned temporarily into a drop-in shelter due to the harsh weather conditions in Mostar, where there are electricity shortages in many neighborhoods, meaning no heating for many families, in sub-zero temperatures.

Families with children and students whose dorms had no heating came to take shelter in Abrasevic, about 50 people in all, seven of them children. About 20 people stayed overnight at OKC.

Abrasevic provided their space, free teas, and heating with gas heaters. Red Cross brought some blankets and camping mattresses, Club Alekse donated hot meals, and individuals also lent their sleeping bags, blankets and clothes.


Articles:


http://mostarlife.com/u-prihvatnom-centru-abra%C5%A1evi%C4%87a-%C4%8Detrdeset-ljudi-ve%C4%87ina-djece

http://www.radiosarajevo.ba/novost/73731

Hope Thru Art

Listen to a podcast with Hope Thru Art, an organization that creates art with and for the homeless.

No time to say goodbye

A major European issue is the exportation of Roma, most recently from from France and also from Germany. This issue has come to Bosnia-Herzegovina as well, now that the situation in Kosovo has calmed down, Roma from Kosovo, who have lived in BH for over 10 years, are now being returned. It hits young people the hardest-- having to leave basically the only home they ever knew. Now they have Serbian passports and can come to visit, can even travel to European countries, but they have to finish school, find jobs and make a new life for themselves in Serbia. Some young people from our church have had to return to Serbia and a youth worker from Mostar wrote a song, recorded it, and made this music video with them...

Abras MEDIA

AbrasMEDIA, socially engaged media, is an independent youth media housed in OKC Abrasevic, with its own internet radio, TV show (in cooperation with local tv station RTV Mostar and the US embassy) and Youtube channel. Funders past and present include the Czech embassy in Sarajevo and the National Endowment for Democracy.

Click here to read articles from AbrasMEDIA translated into English

Mostar TV

Mo.StarT-V (MOstar.STrategies and Activities to Realize Training in Videojournalism) is a school of video journalism housed by OKC Abrasevic, led by Italian filmmaker Gianpaolo Rampini. The project is funded by Italian Region Friuli Venezia Giulia.

The first phase of the project has ended-- a two month video workshop (basic training in camera and editing). Now the 9 workshop participants (researchers, camermen, editors and distributors) need to complete the second phase of the project- making a short documentary about public spaces in Mostar.

Eventually the goal is to form an independent video production house.

Partizan il' domobran?

Mostar il' Sarajevo?

Writing on the Wall

What a difference (good) graffiti makes in a city, creates a feeling of true urbanism... I posted on the blog before anti-fascist graffiti from Novi Sad and take now a moment to share the newly graffiti'd Abras Media Radio container and graffiti from Turin, where we went in November for an exchange with Radio TRIP. There is also now wonderful anti-fa graffiti all over Mostar, but I don't have photos of it-- yet!

Art in Divided Cities

Below are two articles which I wrote for Art in Divided Cities (www.artindicities.org), an art production group housed in OKC Abrasevic. Their project proposes to research the concept of divided cities through the medium of various forms of art.







Derry / Londonderry


Pendleton's Underground City

Media Landscape

As confirmation on a higher level of the kind of pressure media is under, which we felt on a micro-level with the You Tube video about Dex---



BiH Media and Media Regulators Under Pressure

Sarajevo, 23 February 2010 – “The OSCE Mission to BiH is deeply concerned that political pressure on media outlets and agencies in Bosnia and Herzegovina is on the increase”, the OSCE warns in its report “BiH Media and Media Regulators Under Pressure”, released today.

The OSCE calls current developments in the media landscape “worrying” as they impact on the freedom of press and media regulators and the availability of quality information to BiH citizens. The report is addressed to the media and main political representatives and relevant institutions at the state and entity levels, as well as the international community.

It draws attention to a number of recent dismissals within media outlets that give the impression that the media remain vulnerable to political interference. The report also underlines that continuing disagreements on the workings of and appointments in the Communications Regulatory Agency are undermining its independence. It continues by emphasizing the lack of implementation of BiH’s state-of-the-art legislation in regulating the media. The OSCE is also concerned that reports of physical assaults on journalists are increasingly provoking little reaction, despite a rise in the number of such attacks.

Kre(A)ktiva

On February 14, I was part of a celebration of a certain holiday-- that is, the anniversary of the liberation of Mostar from fascism in WWII. We cleaned graffiti from a socialist monument on the Bulevar in the center of the city. This video is an interview with Dex who started an "anti-fa" group, along with footage from a work meeting (anti-fascist posters, t-shirts and graffiti) and then the cleaning action. Shot and edited by Lidija, a young volunteer in Abras Media.


[[ I deleted the video for Dex's safety... Some neo-fascists armed with bats were hunting for Dex at his school. Thankfully they didn't manage to get ahold of him. ]]

Mostar Metal Storm

Thanks to Robi, the current editor of AbrasMedia, a team of young people from both sides of Mostar has come together to create this community radio offering. Anyone who has an idea can come to OKC, receive some training and start broadcasting. Shows range from punk music and social issues, to heavy metal music, to readings of comic strips. A promotional event was held in Abrasevic, featuring young metal bands and a projection of the internet portal and radio site.

036 Crew

This summer I worked with a group of young rappers to film them performing the song that they wrote for the annual bridge-diving festival in Mostar. A friend kindly volunteered his time to give me advice and do color correction... Here is the finished product!

Hayd u Park!

Abrasevic was featured on Hayd u Park, a youth program of the Federal TV station, in December. This video features interviews with the Czech ambassador, Marko Tomas (OKC club manager), Robert Jandric (editor of Abras Radio), Dex (OKC volunteer) and.... ME! hehe.

One of the best things about the video is that it features summer footage of OKC, before the remodel of the facade and before the death of the dogs who lived in the Abrasevic courtyard. So it's like travelling back in time and looking toward the future at the same time! Great stuff.