Before the Fall There Was No Fall. Episode 01: raw material

Anna Dasović
Before the Fall There Was No Fall. Episode 01: raw material
Two-channel video installation
2019

In Dutch with English and Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian subtitles

Episode 01 of Anna Dasović’s project Before the Fall There Was No Fall combines excerpts of texts from the Dutch Former Yugoslavia Handbook (1994) with video material from the archives of the Dutch Ministry of Defence. The artist used the Dutch Freedom of Information Act to request the tapes, and after four years, she was ultimately granted access to them.

Episode 01 consists of raw material from the tapes showing military exercises on NATO sites in Germany and Belgium, where the Dutch Blue Helmets took part in role-playing encounters to prepare for their peacekeeping mission – the protection of the “UN Safe Area” of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In July 1995, Srebrenica was overrun by Bosnian Serb troops who, with Dutch UN soldiers looking on, separated the Bosniak men from the women. The women and children were deported while 8,372 men and boys were executed.

The art work contains archival video material that is at times explicitly sexist and racist.

Commissioned by the Van Abbemuseum and Framer Framed.