Anabela Zigova

In my project, a documentary essay development entitled “SALTO MORTALE” I attempt to examine “the legacy of silence” around the communist past and how even present Slovak culture risks a repetition of its past.

I have recently connected with the Nation’s Memory Institute in Bratislava where I started investigating oral histories of former political prisoners and to review files of former agents of the so called StB (the secret police in Communist Czechoslovakia.)

I want to ask questions that are floating in my head:
How come we know so little of what actually really happened during that period? What would I do in such a moment in time – would I sign in and collaborate with the system? What were the reasons of people’s collaboration and the reasons behind many other intellectuals, artists…(mostly men) contributing to a systematic repression of people’s freedom in the years of totalitarianism? How would we react, the "already free" generation, in those crucial moments…not knowing if the totalitarian regime would ever end and the Berlin wall would ever collapse – would our political integrity be bigger or lesser? What was the role of psychological violence and manipulation? And since many of former StB agents remain strongly present within the justice and government system to this day, one is forced to ask: is it not also because the silence has allowed them to? How do we find a way to discuss, deconstruct and share this painful part of our history in today’s Europe?

During artist residency at quartier21 in Vienna I want to do further research (years 1945-1989 in Czechoslovakia), based on which I would then go into film script writing and filming several interviews (possibly also interviews with former agents of StB (Slovak secret service), as well as present a lecture and videos about this project at quartier21.

I spent two wonderful months at MQ Artist-in-Residence program in Wien.
It was begining of summer (May, June 2010). Centrally located art studio in the heart of MQ is ideal for both work and play in Wien.

I am a film artist who originally comes from Bratislava but is based in New York since ten years. My residency project was a development of a documentary film SALTO MORTALE which focuses on legacy of silence and the dilema of today's young Slovaks as they are reluctant to confront the communist past and the secret police agents who are often family members or close friends, still active in current cultural and political life. I wanted to pose this “local” question, however, very much with a view to global security issues in a post 9/11 world. Can we have security without losing our civil rights? Wien and the cultural context of MQ was a perfect place to start this project, very close to Bratislava where I would go to film interviews but also far enough to take distance from the topic and think about the project in a different and an international context…
During those two months I have created a substantial body of work for this project (interviews, archival footage, texts and script) and I have presented a filmed event and work-in-progress at Raum D at MQ, with a lecture given by historian from bratislavian Nation’s Memory Institute.

I have had the most charming and talented neighbor, artist Benny Nemerovsky Ramsay who work I really appreciate. It was a lot of fun to get to know him and we stay in touch.

I was also very happy for informal support and friendship from Austrian Tranzit, as well as Erste Stiftung, and contacts with Film Archiv, and Akademie der Bildenden Kunste.

I learned about some very good galleries and museums during Vienna Art fair, this period was also time of Vienna International Shorts film festival and some good shows at MQ. I certainly would love to return to Vienna for some specific project, film festival or to participate in an art show in future.