Walk ( Hodaj )

This walk was not about Remembrance.

This walk was not about History.

This walk was not about Politics.

This walk was not about Religion.

This walk was not about Social Injustice.

This walk was not about Migration.

.............

Freelance writer from Serbia living for many years in Salzburg, Marko Dinic, organized a performance walk and talk tour for the students and the public of Salzburg two days ago. Again, the focus of the walk was not on the cultural institutions but on a more personal view of the city, this time highly informative of the historical backgrounds to the particular sculpture, house or area.

Marko Dinic gave just few instructions prior to the walk, not to talk to him, not to ask him any questions and follow him. Over thirty  people followed and in a space of a second became not only participants in the walk but participants in the performance piece that guided us through the city. Contrary to what I thought would happen we were taken on a tour that started from the Marina Abramovic's public sculpture "Spirit of Mozart" to areas that are still filled with tourists but now I will look differently at.

A corner of the Theatergasse in Salzburg tells us a story of a young girl hit by a bus on her way to school, sculpture in the Mirabellplatz speaks about the unnamed artist  Josef Thorak who was at one point the most popular artist of the Nazi-regime, public kitchen that tells a story of over thousand homeless people in Salzburg who are made to become invisible during the Salzburg Festspiele , and a part of the city where over 70 percent immigrants from the Balkan and neighboring countries are living in. All this maybe ten minutes away from the tourist magnetic spots. It just made me more aware of the fact that there are so many layers to a place you visit and I was again really glad that something like this was organized by the Summer Academy.

A message was sharp yet the delivery of it was not done in an aggressive tone or with the use of an over exaggerated political tongue. Marko Dinic with the help of his three friends and colleagues, Patricia Lang, Sarah Oswald and Marle Mairhofer, created for us a small stage within a stage like city and did receive reaction from the passerby's to whom we were all performers yet we were not at all aware of the script. I was really impressed how Marko and his friends organized the walk and the timing of each situation that they wished to present to us.With the use of his own texts, Marko described in a poetic manner what the underlining issue is of the place he took us to while his friends yelled out the words he told them to, walked in a circle around a sculpture,combed their hair or were just frozen in the positions echoing the scene of Christ crucifixions.At each spot we were given sheets of paper telling us a little bit about the sculpture,corner of the street or public kitchen underlining what the walk is / is not about.

In the end, in front of one of the buildings it was clear what this walk and talk was about. It was about this layering of things, events and places that have this common aim and that is of coming home. What each of us take home to be- is another thing.