By Minouche Tas
And so, we’re back. I’m currently a day away from graduating from AUC, and only a week and a bit has passed since returning from Kosovo. We’re still in touch daily with some of the friends we made in Prishtina and so much of this last week has been spent engaging with our time there, through working on our project, that time has blurred a little and I can’t quite fathom how and when and where or why we are where we are now...
And so, we’re back. I’m currently a day away from graduating from AUC, and only a week and a bit has passed since returning from Kosovo. We’re still in touch daily with some of the friends we made in Prishtina and so much of this last week has been spent engaging with our time there, through working on our project, that time has blurred a little and I can’t quite fathom how and when and where or why we are where we are now...
At the beginning of Peace Lab, Audra
and I jumped at the chance to take a more creative approach to our research
project in Kosovo and I almost instantly began fantasizing about creating a
soundscape of layered words, voices, songs, noises, and whatever else we could
accumulate to provide an immersive impression of our time in Kosovo that we
could share with others upon our return.
We quickly realised that adding visuals would create a more complete sensory experience and more accurately convey the multidimensional portrayal we were keen on achieving. So, we spent practically all day every day recording and filming everything we could think of. We recorded birdsong, people running up echoey stairwells, water fountains, car horns, interviews, the clatter of cutlery, laughter, cafe chatter, meetings, songs on the radio in the bus, club music, background noises in bars, street musicians, the call to prayer, grass swaying in the wind, footsteps on gravel, and much more.
Among the things we filmed were mosques, Orthodox churches, libraries, roads, people chatting, people walking, monuments, landscapes, prominent historical sites, the hubbub of city life, smiling faces, birds, children playing, lakes, dancing, traditional festivals, exhibitions, cloudscapes, lightning, sunsets, valleys, our meal times, pavements, mannequins, I could go on and on but I’ll spare you the extra reading.
Basically, we had my massive camera on us at all times and Audra’s phone was always ready to be whipped out at the shortest notice to record whatever sound or sight caught our fancy. We felt as though we had accumulated far too much material and it was indeed an overwhelmingly huge amount but when we returned to Amsterdam we realized we could have done with even more. However, I must say I’m grateful we didn’t, as selecting which moments to include or leave out was difficult enough with the hours and hours of audio and over 800 videos we had procured during our time in Kosovo.
After days upon days of all-consuming editing we were finally finished. The end product became a collage of sounds and videos woven together (at times abstractly) to create an immersive sensory experience laden with moments both powerful and menial to communicate the multi-faceted nature of our time in Kosovo and provide a more nuanced, complex image of a country that is often reduced to a limited, single story.
We quickly realised that adding visuals would create a more complete sensory experience and more accurately convey the multidimensional portrayal we were keen on achieving. So, we spent practically all day every day recording and filming everything we could think of. We recorded birdsong, people running up echoey stairwells, water fountains, car horns, interviews, the clatter of cutlery, laughter, cafe chatter, meetings, songs on the radio in the bus, club music, background noises in bars, street musicians, the call to prayer, grass swaying in the wind, footsteps on gravel, and much more.
Among the things we filmed were mosques, Orthodox churches, libraries, roads, people chatting, people walking, monuments, landscapes, prominent historical sites, the hubbub of city life, smiling faces, birds, children playing, lakes, dancing, traditional festivals, exhibitions, cloudscapes, lightning, sunsets, valleys, our meal times, pavements, mannequins, I could go on and on but I’ll spare you the extra reading.
Basically, we had my massive camera on us at all times and Audra’s phone was always ready to be whipped out at the shortest notice to record whatever sound or sight caught our fancy. We felt as though we had accumulated far too much material and it was indeed an overwhelmingly huge amount but when we returned to Amsterdam we realized we could have done with even more. However, I must say I’m grateful we didn’t, as selecting which moments to include or leave out was difficult enough with the hours and hours of audio and over 800 videos we had procured during our time in Kosovo.
After days upon days of all-consuming editing we were finally finished. The end product became a collage of sounds and videos woven together (at times abstractly) to create an immersive sensory experience laden with moments both powerful and menial to communicate the multi-faceted nature of our time in Kosovo and provide a more nuanced, complex image of a country that is often reduced to a limited, single story.
Unfortunately, we are currently
unable to share the video as some quotes we used from our interviews were off
the record. So, we’re waiting for permission from one of our sources to make
the video publicly accessible.
We found Dutch peanut butter in a
supermarket in North Mitrovica
Everyone enjoying their new
purchases after visiting Kosovo 2.0
Besnik Nurkollari, AKA the
self-proclaimed “Kosovo John Lennon”
I find it hard to put my finger on why,
but our time in Kosovo has felt like a month and also just a day. Going through
the endless hours of footage that Audra and I had accumulated for our project
throughout our trip was tinged with moments of nostalgia and memories already
forgotten.
On our last night in Prishtina we were asked to share our highlights from the trip and I pretty much found the whole thing to be a highlight. I loved bumping into “the Kosovo John Lennon” on his way to film his latest music video at the same fortress in Prizren where we had just completed a mini photoshoot at, the churches and mosques we visited were awe inspiring, the people we met were impressive and kind, our visit to Kosovo 2.0 was inspiring to say the least, learning some words in Albanian from our friends and struggling with the correct pronunciation was rather amusing (we ended up using the only word we were sure of, “faleminderit” meaning thank you, in every exchange we had), being taught a traditional Albanian dance by the same friends and putting our lessons to use the very next day with a party of 250 Albanian war veterans celebrating the anniversary of a battlefield success some 20 years prior was a definite highlight, and the Field of Blackbirds on our way home from Mitrovica was a particularly powerful experience.
The sky was overcast, storm clouds brewing, and there we were in this incredibly historically significant site for Serb nationalism in Kosovo, a prominent tower inscribed with an ominous curse promising to destroy those who dared forget this history or betray their blood. But overhead the blackbirds swooped and sang, weaving in and amongst the tall pines and disappearing out over the mountainous horizon. I was preoccupied with getting everything on film but this gated space, surrounded by fields sprinkled with wildflowers, swirling grasses, and decaying stones, provoked a pensiveness unlike that which I had experienced in other places. The overwhelming history of the place, echoing battle cries and faded bodies fallen, has carried the weight of Serb nationalism in Kosovo for more than six centuries. Symbolising the “heart of Serbia”, its significance ties it eternally in the minds of Serb nationalism, as the crucial essence of Kosovo, to Serb identity.
On our last night in Prishtina we were asked to share our highlights from the trip and I pretty much found the whole thing to be a highlight. I loved bumping into “the Kosovo John Lennon” on his way to film his latest music video at the same fortress in Prizren where we had just completed a mini photoshoot at, the churches and mosques we visited were awe inspiring, the people we met were impressive and kind, our visit to Kosovo 2.0 was inspiring to say the least, learning some words in Albanian from our friends and struggling with the correct pronunciation was rather amusing (we ended up using the only word we were sure of, “faleminderit” meaning thank you, in every exchange we had), being taught a traditional Albanian dance by the same friends and putting our lessons to use the very next day with a party of 250 Albanian war veterans celebrating the anniversary of a battlefield success some 20 years prior was a definite highlight, and the Field of Blackbirds on our way home from Mitrovica was a particularly powerful experience.
The sky was overcast, storm clouds brewing, and there we were in this incredibly historically significant site for Serb nationalism in Kosovo, a prominent tower inscribed with an ominous curse promising to destroy those who dared forget this history or betray their blood. But overhead the blackbirds swooped and sang, weaving in and amongst the tall pines and disappearing out over the mountainous horizon. I was preoccupied with getting everything on film but this gated space, surrounded by fields sprinkled with wildflowers, swirling grasses, and decaying stones, provoked a pensiveness unlike that which I had experienced in other places. The overwhelming history of the place, echoing battle cries and faded bodies fallen, has carried the weight of Serb nationalism in Kosovo for more than six centuries. Symbolising the “heart of Serbia”, its significance ties it eternally in the minds of Serb nationalism, as the crucial essence of Kosovo, to Serb identity.
Peace Lab has been a beautiful way
for me to wrap up my time at AUC and finish on a definite high. The freedom and
creativity of our project and the way the course was structured felt like a
little nudge towards the untethered prospects of life after AUC for me. A
stepping stone in the process of finding my feet with a little less structure and
a little less guidance and learning to trust my passions, interests and
instincts, and the intersection of these while producing meaningful work that
inspires me.
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