Sanja Ivekovic
Trip Start
Jun 16, 2007
1
12
18
Trip End
Sep 23, 2007
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Kassel,
Germany
Thursday, August 16, 2007
In the English-speaking world, the red poppy has become a symbol for the memory of soldiers killed in the war, while in the countries with a communist past it has been "adopted" to represent the spirit of resistance and revolution. "For me, coming from Eastern Europe, red poppies are not a symbol for death and dead soldiers but they are little flames of political struggle."
By also sowing seeds of the opium poppy, Sanja Ivekovic wants to point to the issue of the cultivation of the opium poppy for drug purposes. Today, six years after the "democratic" government was installed by the USA, Afghanistan is the country where 92% of the world's opium supply is produced. Afghan women are often direct victims of atrocities resulting from the illicit drug trade.
As in many other of her public art works, in Mohnfeld ('Poppy field') Sanja Iveković has been collaborating with feminist-activist organisations, in this case with Lezbor from Zagreb, Croatia, and with RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. Consequently, the voices of Afghan and Croatian women's choirs singing the revolutionary songs will be played on Friedrichsplatz twice on sunny days.
