Cazim Hadzimejlic and Alma Suljevic
melihat@bih.net.ba
www.womenbeyondborders.org/j_bosnia.htm
Alma Suljevic is a sculptor, who actively participated in the Bosnian war.
That
experience influenced her art and life, merging both into an inseparable unit.
Abandoning her sculpting skills, she began to execute very edgy art
performances, believing them to be a more "appropriate" form of
expression. Her
most risky performance is one in which she takes the role of a female suicide
bomber. In this performance, she deals with what is possibly the most confusing
component of Bosnian identity-- Islamic cultural heritage. She fights against
the tendency of Western officials to see Muslims as a fundamentalist threat
to
the West. Ironically, these Western officials are simultaneously being rejected
by the Islamic world because they are Europeans.
Her recent performance of the “Holy Warrior” was performed in
Belgrade, Vienna,
and St-Etienne.
Like Alma, Cazim Hadzimejic also deals with Bosnia’s Islamic cultural
heritage
and its disastrous post-war situation; but unlike Alma’s, Cazim’s
ideas and
efforts are more rooted in Islamic religious spirituality, especially Sufi’s
heritage, and are expressed in a more traditional way. He is actively involved
in the building of a hospital and the revival of traditional spiritual methods
of healing the “soul’s wounds,” (the PTSD). He is also reactivating
and
rejuvenating the old Sufi order that has existed for centuries in his native
village Kacuni, which is run by his family.
