What happened with South Slavia 1991-1995

— Ljepota je utjeha u Zlu?

— Ponisten Intelekt?

— Kradljivci Snova?

— 1989 When the Berlin Wall fell: I was late teenager. I had a cat whose name was Beki. That cat was something else. I found her in a flower pot when she was a very small kitten near the restaurant “Amerikanac” (now it is McDonalds). I took her into my coat pocket so that I did not need to pay a tram ticket for her. She stayed almost till the end very close to me. The last time I saw her was in 1993 during the siege of Sarajevo. Refugees were in my babushka’s house and they kick Baki out. During the war the city was divided and under the constant sniper shelling. One summer day in 1993, I managed to visit my babushka. Beki was sitting before the wooden gates to the house. She was very frail and emaciated. She seemed to be missing one eye. Apparently, from the distance I too looked to her emaciated, frail and injured. But Beki recognised me in spite of this and stood up—though she could not walk. I picked her up and brought her inside the house. Yes, I wanted to take her with me again in my pocket to America.

— First brush with the war: Barcelona ’92 Summer Olympics—I was in Sarajevo.I watched the opening ceremony from the basement of a building. The explosion took the roof of the whole building and we lost the signal. The TV went blank. That signalled the begging of devastating war in the former Yugoslavia. I was scared. I remembered I kept asking myself what is going on? —I needed to go to the lectures the next day. I could not believe that war – war as in War – is happening in my Olimpic Sarajevo? From that moment until about ’95 Olympic Spirit was struggling to survive. I was very a young man, eighteen, with only one dream in my head: to finish my University, marry, have eleven kids, and have a house. The war in Sarajevo and Yugoslavia was excessively difficult for me. It left a permanent mark on me. Barcelona ’92 Olympics and its opening ceremony to me was the opening of long and difficult personal struggle to survive and make something of my life.

— Poster Immigrant: From 1995 to 2000 was a difficult time for me. During the war I was injured,in 1994 I became a refugee, and in 1997 I emigrating to the USA. By 1994 I somehow had to abandon all of my dreams I had as young boy. War speeded up my growth. It was during the war that somehow, I decided to live and survive the carnage and one day express it via academia or art. Today in addition to science I find dadaism (Dada Art) as an important instrument in understanding the nature and the world which we all share during our lives. It helped me taxi my war experience.

— When the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster happened on February 1st 2003, I was at Rollins College in Florida studying for my BA in International Relations.