{"id":133865,"date":"2015-06-16T10:48:46","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T09:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.recom.link\/?p=133865"},"modified":"2015-11-03T12:26:46","modified_gmt":"2015-11-03T11:26:46","slug":"dresses-in-a-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.recom.link\/en\/dresses-in-a-stadium\/","title":{"rendered":"Dresses In a Stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"

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One woman who had been abandoned by her husband donated her wedding dress. Another gave Xhafa-Mripa the red dress she was raped in. The attack happened during the first year of her marriage, which subsequently fell apart. She told the artist that she was \u201cgiving away all the pain, the suffering, the thoughts\u201d about her marriage.<\/em><\/p>\n

A third woman gave away a white dress. She was six months pregnant when she was raped. Her baby was killed.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The artist, Alketa Xhafa-Mripa. (Photos http:\/\/qz.com)<\/span><\/h6>\n
Note> Take a look at gallery bellow<\/em><\/h6>\n

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5,000 dresses in a soccer stadium help Kosovo talk about wartime rape<\/h3>\n

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Written by Hanna Kozlowska<\/a><\/h5>\n

Published on QUARTZ, June 11, 2015<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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The simple act of airing dirty laundry is taking on a new, powerful meaning in the young country of Kosovo this Friday, June 12. To commemorate survivors of rape in Kosovo\u2019s war in the late nineties, an artist is stringing up 5,000 dresses on clotheslines stretched across the main soccer stadium in the country\u2019s capital<\/p>\n

June 12 marks the day in 1999 when NATO troops entered Kosovo after a long-standing conflict between ethnic Albanians and Serbs escalated into war. Serbian forces carried out a program of ruthless ethnic cleansing during the fighting.<\/p>\n

One of their weapons of war was sexual violence.<\/p>\n

Although exact numbers are impossible to determine, it is estimated by international organizations that as many as 20,000 women were raped during the war\u2014in detention centers, refugee convoys, in their own homes, along with their daughters and sisters. Many women stayed silent about their experiences, even to their own husbands, and the issue has largely remained a dark, if open secret.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey felt ashamed, they felt dirty, that they have a stain. For me it was the opposite. They are clean, they are pure,\u201d the project\u2019s author, London-based artist Alketa Xhafa-Mripa tells Quartz. The installation is entitled \u201cThinking of You.\u201d She says that \u201cit is about being as one, not them <\/i>and us. <\/i>We are one as women. If it happened to her, it could have happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She decided to stage the conceptual art piece in a soccer stadium, an epitome of a masculine space. \u201cIt symbolizes a man\u2019s world: Sweat, anger, shouts, adrenaline,\u201d she says. What\u2019s more, it\u2019s confined, it\u2019s a \u201cbox\u201d from which there is no escape, evoking the experience of rape.<\/p>\n

The project\u2019s producer, Anna Di Lellio adds that the stadium is in the center of Pristina, a location where the city holds military parades and war-related celebrations. The project is a different way of honoring the war, without the pomp and triumphalism, she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a different story; it\u2019s a story of the intense suffering that the war brought to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the past several weeks, Xhafa-Mripa and Di Lellio have been organizing clothing drives around the country and internationally, to collect the dresses. The response has been overwhelming, they say. They\u2019ve received items from women of all walks of life, from deputies in parliament to a woman who was too poor to donate a skirt, but gave knitted socks instead.<\/p>\n

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A meet up to collect dresses for the installation. (photo: Jetmir Idrizi)(Courtesy of Anna Di Lellio)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The country\u2019s ambassador to the US donated a dress she wore to sign Kosovo\u2019s independence declaration. British foreign office minister Baroness Anelay donated a skirt<\/a> as did advocate for women\u2019s rights and wife of former UK prime minister, Cherie Blair. Fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg emailed Kosovo\u2019s president asking how she could help with the effort.<\/p>\n

But perhaps some of the most powerful stories came from the rural areas, where the wartime fighting was most intense. Women would pull the organizers aside during the drives saying, \u201cI am one of them,\u201d says Di Lellio. Sometimes they would talk about their own experiences in the third person, which is common among survivors of trauma.<\/p>\n

One woman who had been abandoned by her husband donated her wedding dress. Another gave Xhafa-Mripa the red dress she was raped in.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

One woman who had been abandoned by her husband donated her wedding dress. Another gave Xhafa-Mripa the red dress she was raped in. The attack happened during the first year of her marriage, which subsequently fell apart. She told the artist that she was \u201cgiving away all the pain, the suffering, the thoughts\u201d about her marriage.<\/p>\n

A third woman gave away a white dress. She was six months pregnant when she was raped. Her baby was killed.<\/p>\n

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During a clothing drive in New York, a woman named Lule Pula came up to Di Lellio, clutching a red polka dot dress. As she gave it to her, she said \u201cthis is the dress I wore when I came to America.\u201d She then reached for another one. \u201cThis dress belonged to my mother.\u201d Pula\u2019s mother, as it turned out, was an anti-fascist activist during World War Two when she met her husband, partisan commander and Kosovo\u2019s future prime minister. \u201cI wanted to share one small tiny thing with those who suffered,\u201d she said, teary-eyed. <\/b><\/p>\n

Sixteen years later, the perpetrators have largely remained unpunished. Fearing stigmatization, women very rarely come forward to report what happened to them, let alone seek prosecution. Even fewer land in court, says Veprore Shehu of Medica Kosova, an organization that helps survivors. In the two cases her group is involved in, arrest warrants have been issued but the suspects are still at large.<\/p>\n

For the most part, the women have other, more basic needs. Many of the survivors\u2019 husbands were killed in the conflict. The women were left as sole providers for their families, in areas ravaged by war and poverty, with little education and almost no financial help. Shehu says, \u201ceconomic empowerment is crucial,\u201d to help lift them out of poverty.<\/p>\n

Last year, after pressure from human rights groups, the country\u2019s parliament amended a law<\/a> that granted veterans and civilian victims various benefits and compensation to include rape victims.<\/p>\n

The Kosovar president Atifete Jahjaga is involved in a number of initiatives to support rape survivors, including efforts to give them more financial independence, as well as the art installation, which she supported from day 1.<\/p>\n

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President Jahjaga helps collecting skirts Pristina. (photo: Jetmir Idrizi)(Courtesy of Anna Di Lellio)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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In order to receive help, however, these women need to come forward. And initiatives such as \u201cThinking of You\u201d foster the public conversation that is necessary to de-stigmatize their experiences.<\/p>\n

One response that surprised the art installation\u2019s creators has been the reaction of Kosovo\u2019s men, who have come forward in large numbers to donate dresses that belonged to their wives or mothers.<\/p>\n

One patriarch of a well-known family of war victims, most of whom were slaughtered during the war, met with Di Lellio and Xhafa-Mripa in his traditional Albanian hat and big mustache, and said that \u201cit is about time we think of our sisters and mothers, wives.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Man donating his wife\u2019s skirt. (photo: Jetmir Idrizi)(Courtesy of Anna Di Lellio)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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<\/b>Xhafa-Mripa is in talks with authorities about transforming \u201cThinking of You\u201d into a permanent installation in Pristina. But she also plans to take the piece to other places touched by war, where sexual violence was used as a weapon. \u201cI want them to have a statue of liberty of their own.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\r\n\t