The Damned Dam

Written by lalarascic

The year is 2027. Tarik is a young engineer, Merima is his beloved. They will save the townspeople of Lukavac if they broadcast the radio drama “Catastrophe” form the year 2000. Heroes and fairies, love and dystopia, rivers and lakes, dams and  factories, BH and EU, epic geography and oral tradition. A romance in the future is shaped here.

www.prokletabrana.net
(only in Croatian/Bosnian)

  • 26.09.2010. 20h 3 Damned Utopias: The Damned Dam, Zvono, Hamdije Kreševljakovića 17, Sarajevo
  • 19.10.2010. 19h Kolos, Delta and Europolis: The Damned Dam, Mali klub Akademija, Rajićeva 10, Belgrade
  • 30.10.2010. Where Everything is Yet to Happen, SpaPort, Banja Luka
  • 16. -20.11.2010. 20h The Damned Dam, Pogon Jedinstvo,Trnjanski nasip bb, Zagreb

Lala Raščić’s project The Damned Dam departs from a real event when the broadcasting of a radio drama Catastrophe caused a panic in the Bosnian town of Lukavac similar to that of Orson Wells’s War of the Worlds. The motif of the flood is embedded in the fictional narrative that is composed on the basis of field research on specific locations and events in the region. The collected materials are processed as objects, video installations, audio recordings, a blog and performances that form the elements of this modular project. The narrative strategies that the artist employs in her work are now, in the project The Damned Dam, informed by Bosnian traditions of oral literature. Based on the study of these traditional forms, the artist delivers a fantasy love story set in the future intersected with socio-policial connotations.

A series of public events that will take place in Sarajevo, Belgrade, Banja Luka and Zagreb premiere with a storytelling performance of a lyric epic narrative as part of a three-day performance series; 3 Damned Utopias: 3 Narrative Performances by Lala Raščić. In accordance with the tradition of oral storytelling, the narrative transforms with each performance, following the development of the narrative through the cities in which it is performed. The Damned Dam project will culminate with the Zagreb exhibition in which all the elements of this project-in-progress will be collected in a multimedia installation.

Partners:
BLOK, Zagreb, www.urbanfestival.hr
DELVE, Zagreb, Belgrade, www.kontekstgalerija.org
PROTOK, Banja Luka, www.protok.org
SCCA, Sarajevo, www.scca.ba

supported by:
Ministry of Culture of Croatia, www.min-kulture.hr