(R)evolucija Project is an open and multidisciplinary project, which uses the journey as a means of artistic expression.
The starting point was a reflection on nomadism and on creation and modification of spaces through wandering. As steady settlement inhabitants, we have got used to conceiving public space as something already given, with which there is little or even no interaction. Nevertheless, physical boundaries are only artificial and arbitrary constructions. (Re)create them, (Re)think them. This is needed to generate the freest kind of citiziens and with them, the fairest societies.
The history of humanity is the history of migrations, wanderings and transitions. Wandering is the most ancient form of modification, definition and construction of space.
The journey, due to its own ephemeral essence, succeeds in erasing the limits of reality. Travelling is being everywhere and nowhere, all at the same time. Identities are disolved, bundaries are removed. A new mental route, a subjective and personal world cartography are created.
The GrupoJamila has undertaken an initation and creation travel, using the journey as a tool to grasp reality.
The dissolution of the limits is also applied for the vague line which divides art and everyday experience. GrupoJamila utilises chance and game as liberation rituals, as creation rituals of a new reality.
Dadaists collective visits, Surrealists tours, Situacionists wanderings, the artists of the 70th whose practise were based in performance and urban happenings derived from Dadaism, as well as artists interested in architecture and landscape can be, all of them, named as decisive influences in GrupoJamila´s work method.
GrupoJamila´s wanderings are framed within Balkan countries. Their interest in this geographic zone is due to its geo-political importance and its condition as civilizations´enclave. No better place could be found to carry out these wanderings, these identity shifts and this questioning and overturning of boundaries.
The aims pursued by this project are:
- To encourage a concious use of public space.
- To convert each and every human act into an artistic experience.
- To promote art as an everyday human experience.
- To reveal the creative opportunities The Balkan countries provide us with.
- To stablish contacts with artistic agents of this area..
The name of the project came up due to the intervention of chance. It was borrowed from a graffiti located in a building in Sarajevo. The word Revolucija had been modified, with the 'r' crossed out on purpose. This modification created an interesting word game between Revolution and Evolution.
The project consist of three stages, having been carried out the first of them. Within the first phase, the wandering took us through Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The second one is to be made of a journey through Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo. The third is to consist of a wandering through Bulgaria, Rumania and Moldavia.
FIRST STAGE:
The first phase was self-finaced and The GrupoJamila counted on photographer Davido Martín´s collaboration.
Starting in km 0 in Puerta del Sol in Madrid, a long journey took them up to Sarajevo. From there, Jamila´s work began to be built, using different audiovisual and literary artistic formats.
The material for artistic creations is collected from places where Jamila sleeps, from people they meet, gastronomy, from long chats whilst driving, and basically from all the experience which is made the journey.
A limited edition artist´s box containing photographs, poetry-story and video-art, emerged from the project.
