The Balkans Project

Anna Kalinina: Let’s focus our discussion on the time you spent in the Balkans and how your impressions from the region might be reflected in your work as an artist. First however, I would like to know which countries you visited and how long where you there.

Nicolás Dumit Estévez: I was able to visit Bosnia, Turkey, and Macedonia. I was there for close to two weeks. I flew to Istanbul and from there I traveled to Sarajevo with Olivia Georgia and John Feffer. In Sarajevo we met Donald Russell, then I went on my own to Skopje, in Macedonia.

Anna Kalinina: I understand that you want to practice all the faiths of Sarajevo – can you tell me more about this?

Nicolás Dumit Estévez: This is an idea for an art and life experience that I have been developing and which relates to my upbringing in the Spanish speaking Caribbean. I grew up in a very diverse environment, religiously speaking. Part of my mother’s family came to the Dominican Republic from Lebanon. My father’s side of the family is from the Dominican Republic. Lately, I have been tracing my background to Haiti through both sides of the family, maternal and paternal. But going back to the subject of religion and spirituality, I had the most pluralistic childhood in this respect. I remember going to Jehovah’s Witnesses primary school, attending an evangelical summer camp and then going to Catholic school from fourth grade until my last year in high school. At home, l was also introduced to Afro-Caribbean spirituality. So at the age of seven I had a fairly elaborate altar in my bedroom. My mother has had and continues to have an ecumenical understanding of spiritually, so it was a blessing to have this kind of upbringing. Now she goes to an evangelical church.

Anna Kalinina: As an art and life experience, what does practicing “all of the faiths of Sarajevo” entail?

Nicolás Dumit Estévez: Trying to abide, as much as I can, by all religious precepts. When I conceived this idea, I was asking myself what it would take to be Jewish, Catholic, Muslim and Orthodox at the same time. How can one single person try to reconcile all of these faiths? But the concept of my art-life experience in the Balkans is changing. After having a long conversation with a native from Sarajevo who now lives in the U.S. and a U.S. citizen who formerly lived in Sarajevo, I realized that I want to follow a different direction with this idea. I am now planning to go Mostar because I heard that the city is divided in two parts, a Muslim side and a Catholic side. What if I were to live with two Muslim families on their side of town and with two Catholic families on their side of town? And at the end bring the four families together in the territory comprising the borderland between both sides?

Anna Kalinina: That sounds like a fascinating project! How would you incorporate such an experience into your art?

Nicolás Dumit Estévez: I am very much into effacing borders: cultural, religious, class, and national borders, among many others. The experience itself is the artwork. Life and art will overlap. Here again we are dealing with borders – the border separating art from life and vice versa. What would happen if in the process of deleting a religious border I also deleted the border that keeps art and life on separate sides of the equation?

Anna Kalinina: I understand – that’s a very interesting concept. So would you say that your travels to the Balkans were one of these art/life experiences?

Nicolás Dumit Estévez: Muslim-Art-Catholic-Life. I am getting to a point in my life where it is becoming increasingly complicated to separate art from life. This is a very exciting, but sometimes nerve-racking stage. In fact, I am preparing to go on a post-modern pilgrimage during which tourism and traditional religion will overlap. This trip is part vacation, part devotional journey and part art experience. I will be on a pilgrimage from my beloved South Bronx to Montserrat in Catalonia. There I plan to reflect on my indelible African background, as I visit the site of La Moreneta, the Virgin of Montserrat, the Black Madonna who is Patroness of Catalonia. Then I go to Lourdes to try to get submerged into the holy spring and to pay a small homage to my Haitian relatives. Part of my father’s side of the family came from Haiti, and their last name was Belliard. I have been looking for them, in case you know anyone who has this last name.

Anna Kalinina: No, unfortunately I don’t.

Nicolás Dumit Estévez: I will be on this pilgrimage for ten days. From Lourdes I go to Fatima, to thank the Virgin for having cured me from recurrent gastritis. My final stop is Berlin, where I show images from the pilgrimages at a seminar I teach at the Transart Institute.

Anna Kalinina: Let’s talk a little about your overall impressions from the Balkan region – what did you expect Istanbul, Sarajevo and Skopje to be like? (culturally, socially, etc). How did your impressions compare to those initial expectations?

Nicolás Dumit Estévez: That trip opened up a new world for me. Again, growing up as a Lebanese-Dominican in the Dominican Republic, people always called us Turks. Going to Istanbul was a strange kind of homecoming… I am not sure how to explain it. But when I got to Skopje a person thought of me as a Turk, which made me think of my Dominican countrymen and countrywomen. I must say that most of my contacts with locals took place in Skopje and Sarajevo. I got to interact with people who did not speak English or any of the languages I speak, and I did not speak their language, so it was like going back to infancy.

Anna Kalinina: Were your experiences in Skopje and Sarajevo what you expected them to be? Or did this trip change your perceptions of the Balkans?

Nicolás Dumit Estévez: I tried not to have any expectations. This is difficult, though. Sarajevo shocked me, because of the images of the place we receive in the Americas. It was quite cosmopolitan and fixed up, as opposed to the city in shamble that the news presented us with for years. I guess the same can be said about the South Bronx. Years have gone by since the fires, and most people have not updated their image of the place. Skopje was a different experience, I don’t know if you would like me to describe this.

Anna Kalinina: If you have time, definitely!

Nicolás Dumit Estévez: I found a more cohesive art community in this city, so for me it was easier to navigate the cultural institutions. People were friendly, but I had less of an opportunity to interact with locals or residents outside the art world. Most of the people I met were scholars, visual artists or curators. But I was able to attend mass at two Orthodox churches. I have never been to one before.

Anna Kalinina: How did you find that?

Nicolás Dumit Estévez: I found the first church while walking to the market. When I went inside I was amazed by the icons and how elaborate the interior was. The place felt extremely charged spiritually speaking. I immediately made arrangements to attend mass. The Priest came and spoke with me. His English was very good. At the end of our conversation he showed me his license plate – it was from Ohio. He was from the area but had lived in the United States for several years. He asked me my religious denomination, then mentioned to me that Catholics and Orthodox are 90% the same. The service was completely new to me. I did not know how to proceed or what was allowed. I figured I would follow what the rest of the congregation did. I wanted to sit, but soon realized that unless one is elder, one is supposed to stand. Then I noticed how women were grouped on one side of the church and men on the other side – more borders.

Anna Kalinina: Were the women wearing headscarves? I know that traditionally, they are supposed to.

Nicolás Dumit Estévez: I don’t recall this, but they brought bread and other kinds of food and they placed a lit candle in the middle of this. They had a different way of genuflecting and making the sign of the cross – I couldn’t pass as one of them.

Anna Kalinina: Was it the following week that you attended mass at another Orthodox church?

Nicolás Dumit Estévez: Yes. But this time I attended mass with a friend, who happens to be Orthodox. The place was packed; people would come and go during a service that lasted hours. I am very curious about this church, which is obviously more strict than the Catholic. Time permitting, when I visit the Balkans again, I would love to engage in an experience with a group of cloister monks.

Anna Kalinina: Have you travelled anywhere in Western Europe?

Nicolás Dumit Estévez: Yes – I have been to Germany several times and to Catalonia, Spain, France, the UK and Andorra. I lived in Calaf, a small town near Catalonia for two months with the purpose of meeting everyone in the place. Oh, and I must not forget Prague. But it was not me who went there.

Anna Kalinina: Who did?

Nicolás Dumit Estévez: The Holy Infant of Prague. This was part of an experience for which Nicolas traveled from his home in the Bronx, then surrendered his personality in Berlin to become the Holy Infant, and to enter the city of Prague as such. So I can’t say that I have been there.

Anna Kalinina: How does one surrender one’s personality?

Nicolás Dumit Estévez: It is part of a complicated process. In my case it entailed traveling to Berlin, where I was undressed by Alanna Lockward, a Dominican curator. Alanna then clothed me in a replica of one of the Holy Infant’s vestments, crown et al. From Berlin, the blood and flesh Holy Infant proceeded to his earthly place in the Czech Republic because that is the place where the Holy Infant is, in the Church of Our Lady Victorious.

This interview was conducted through Skype on June 28, 2010