New life is new only if it is in front of itself.[1]

The small bus that picked me up from my address is of a reasonable size and soon I find myself enjoying this sensation of being in motion and sitting down. I am enjoying the idea of the “new “which is in front of me. I am ignoring the fact that in front of me is a five hour drive, an open field, few bushes and flat ground.

A week ago, M decided we should not see each other anymore. I packed my bags and went to see D[2], an artist - a friend from Zagreb. I left behind another letter of the alphabet, my cat, my work, one small zebra balloon that I placed on my bookshelf three years ago when F decided we should not see each other anymore. This was two years after N decided to go to Alaska. I hope that soon I will place the letters in the right order to make a comprehensible sentence. Perhaps that moment will mark a new beginning - a “new” life. But what is a “new” life?

My artist friend D is a photographer. I am one of the members of the support crew, a small ‘intellectual’, a small artist from Belgrade, a small woman with a small nose, short hair and changeable mood. Just before I started writing this, I read an article about becoming a princess. For sure, I am not on the right path. But for now, the path I decided to take is placing me in Zagreb, Gallery SC close to the center of the city.

I feared that more drama would occupy my friend’s small flat where I was not the only woman but I was wrong. In his now ‘new’ life, D is more than before organized, self-sufficient and with smart words.

I am positive that all of the above helped him with the organization of the final look of the show. The entire research for the exhibition was not done in haste and it did take two years of my friend’s life. He decided to focus on the immigrants seeking asylum in Croatia. This topic is important to him since he had to move from his home town as a young boy. Most of us , from these Balkan lands had to move at one point or the other and practice our ‘ broken English’, add letters to words that meant the same whatever way you looked at them, but still make sure that the pronunciation of the “new” word was right.

Carefully planned and freed from clutter D’s exhibition was set in three parts, portraits of 12 immigrants (asylum seekers), a photo-video montage of D’s interventions with posters in the public space and photographs of posters in the process of decay. Well, if I am to be honest, for me it consisted of four parts as I was more than impressed with the lighting and shadows produced.

Elegantly lit from above, 12 portraits of photographed immigrants - carefully placed to avoid the cliché given to photographers after Croatia’s accession to the EU - printed on Plexiglas, hang from the ceiling. The entire composition associated in my over worried mind, notion of death, the tomb stones, the old stories and in a strange way the belief in a new beginning. The faces looked back at us, their gaze was not hidden, and they were present. If one wanted, one could build their stories from small details on few of the photographs. A ring hangs on a pearl necklace; a small scar on a man’s lip; a woman smiles. But, I don’t dare create stories about them. Why I am afraid, I am not sure, but in the skein of many different thoughts I catch the one asking if maybe in their glance is that “new” life.

On the evening of the opening I was kissed twice by a small black dog. He kissed me on my cheek. In Serbia we kiss three times. I hope that C still remembers this.

[1] Jovan Aćin “ Fluid Crystal – Anthology of the Serbian micro essays of the 20th Century” , Zoran Bognar
[2] Davor Konjikušić – www.davorko.net