OUR FAMILY GARDEN – SMIRA KULENOVIĆ (BA)

It’s shortly before 10am on a hot summer morning in the middle of August 2021. Artist Smirna Kulenović is standing atop Zlatište, a hill overlooking the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, while the pulsating chirp of crickets rings out across the parched landscape. In the distance, a line of 100 women, all dressed in red, wind their way through the grass. They are here to take part in Kulenović’s art performance, “Our Family Garden.” Together, they will plant 1000 seeds of calendula flowers: an act that will serve both a healing ritual after the horrors of the Yugoslav Wars, and a living monument that serves the future.