Darkness Begone (Škuro, Hoj Ča!)

U1115_DAVIS_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 1
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Novigrad, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

U1113_DAVIS_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 1
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Novigrad, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

U1128_davis_crpadj2

Darkness Begone, Day 2
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

U1125_DAVIS_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 3
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

U1129_davis_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 2
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

U1127_davis_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 2
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

U2886_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 3
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Porec, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

U2899_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 4
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Labin, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

U2902_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 4
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Labin, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

U1131_kohout_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 5
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Milan Kohout

U2906_Kohout_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 5
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Milan Kohout

U1133_kohout_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 5
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Milan Kohout

U1134_kohout_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 5
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Milan Kohout

U1137_kohout_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 5
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Milan Kohout

U1132_kohout_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 5
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Milan Kohout

U1130_kohout_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 5
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Milan Kohout

U1136_kohout_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 5
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Milan Kohout

U1138_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 5
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Milan Kohout

U1144_davis_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 6
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

U1140_davis_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 6
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

U1142_davistif_crpadj2

Darkness Begone, Day 6
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

U1141_davis_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 6
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

D500_croatia_mrdth_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 6
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

D475_croatia_mrdth_crpadj

Darkness Begone, Day 6
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

D470_mar_col_adj

Darkness Begone, Day 6
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project
Pula, Croatia
photo by Meredith Davis Morten

'Darkness Begone' was a series of daily actions to dispel darkness. They took place at six public sites in the Istrian region of Croatia. In each location, a shroud of darkness was installed. The darkness slowly receded until no sign of it remained. The action took 2 to 3 hours to complete. Each day the darkness was forced back underground.

event:
Usvajanje slobode/Taking Liberty exchange project, Croatia
location:
A daily action to dispell darkness, in six locations in Istria, Croatia
sponsor:
Mobius, Inc.
date:
October 1999

Project Notes:

‘Darkness Begone’ (in Istrian: Škuro, Hoj Ča!) was a series of daily actions to dispel darkness. They took place at six public sites in the Istrian region of Croatia, including in the window an old stone house on a narrow street in Novigrad; from the front door of Pula’s City Hall, in use since the 1200s when it was re-constructed from the remains of a roman temple; in a former 13th century church in Porec; on an elevator tower over a closed coal mine shaft in Labin; through an abandoned car protruding from the cellar window of a former military training school in Pula; and at the Citadel, an old fort which is now Pula’s Historical Museum. In each location, a shroud of darkness was installed. The darkness slowly receded until no sign of it remained. The action took 2 to 3 hours to complete. Each day the darkness was forced back underground.

The final action took place at the Citadel. It has been the site of a fort since Roman times, atop the hill in the center of Pula. Stairs from all parts of the city lead up to it. It is connected to other parts of the city by tunnels which have been built by the military over the centuries, which supposedly have never been mapped. Odd doors and passages leading underground appear all over the city. People talked about two brothers who became lost playing in the tunnels during the early 70s, and were never found, despite extensive searches. I was told that their bones were discovered recently, when the tunnels were reopened and electricity was installed in anticipation of bombings during the recent war. The older brother was found sitting against a wall, holding the younger boy in his lap.

In a grassy courtyard of the Citadel, I laid out a black cloth measuring 25 meters (82 feet) x 8.2 meters (26 feet). At the center of the space was a cement bunker which provided access to tunnels beneath the city. Covering the bunker with the cloth gave it an ominous, tomb-like presence. Initially the cloth covered nearly the entire grassy area, resembling a rippling black sea. Over the course of several hours the shroud of darkness moved across the grass, nearly imperceptibly, disappearing through an opening in the bunker into the tunnels underneath the city. Eventually all the darkness disappeared beneath the surface, into the underground.

The audience could view the action from a number of perspectives. They were free to enter the yard and watch it at ground level as close as they wished. In the wall of the fort was a metal grated door, which gave a limited view of the dark cloth moving past. Mounted at that gate was a small monitor which provided a close up of that which could not be viewed directly: me pulling the cloth and pushing it down into the hole. The audience could also view the action on three sides from above, at the top of the stone walls of the fort.

The metaphoric nature of the image allowed the work to be read on both personal and political levels. Contemplating the action allowed myself and the viewers to consider all the kinds of darkness that we might wish to dispel from both our private and our public lives. It generated discussions as to what the darkness might be, where it came from, where it might go, and who could make it disappear. Each of the six sites’ actions could be read differently, because of variations in the design of the actions and their relationship to the specific history of each site.

The title is a command, not a description. Whoever speaks it aloud is participating in the action. Darkness Begone.

LOCATIONS:

DAY 1:  Gallery Rigo, Novigrad  (part of the old town)

DAY 2:  City Hall, Trg Forum, Pula

DAY 3:  Istarska Sabornica, Porec  (former 13th century church)

DAY 4:  KuC “Lamparna”, Labin  (former coal mine)

DAY 5:  dvoriste bivse vojarne Karlo Rojc, Pula  (former military training school)

DAY 6:  Povijesni muzej Istre, Citadel, Pula  (site of military fort since the Romans)

Additional Texts: