Dirty laundry no more: Victims of sexual assault get a new symbol at Kosovo art exhibit

By Johnny Simon From Mashable

Thousands died during the two-year conflict in Kosovo at the hands of the Serbian army. Their deaths remain part of a national conversation about the dark time spanning 1998 and 1999, but the sexual violence that took place then do not.

Kosovar conceptual artist Alketa Xhafa-Mripa spotlights the painful history of sexual violence during the war in her latest art installation “Thinking of You.”

She has collected thousands of dresses and skirts and hung them on clotheslines in the middle of a soccer field in Kosovo’s capital Prishtina, to bring awareness and a sense of scale to the more than 20,000 survivors of sexual violence during the war.

“Thinking of You” takes cues from massive public art projects such as the AIDS quilt in the Unites States or the Sarajevo Red Line, an exhibition of 11,541 empty chairs, which commemorate the Seige of Sarajevo in the early ’90s.

“‘Air dirty laundry in public’ is a way of saying ‘Talk about your private issues in public’, but in this case the laundry is washed, clean, like the women survivors who are clean, pure – they carry no stain,” Xhafa-Mrida said in an interview with The Guardian.

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Conceptual artist Alketa Xhafa-Mripa spotlights sexual violence in her exhibit ‘Thinking of You,’ in Prestina stadium, Kosovo.
IMAGE: VALDRIN XHEMAJ/EPA
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Kosovo born artist Alketa Xhafa Mripa walks through skirts and dresses hanging from clothes lines, part of her art installation called ‘Thinking of You,’ in Prestina stadium, Kosovo on June 10, 2015.
IMAGE: VISAR KRYEZIU/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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An aerial view of ‘Thinking of You’ by Kosovo-born artist Alketa Xhafa Mripa.
IMAGE: VISAR KRYEZIU/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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A volunteer hangs a dress on a clothes line.
IMAGE: VISAR KRYEZIU/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Kosovo president Atifete Jahjaga, center, holds a skirt bearing the message: “This skirt has a closed history since spring 1998 Peje,” in Pristina Stadium, on June 12, 2015. Jahjaga is Kosovo’s first female president.
IMAGE: VISAR KRYEZIU/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Lines of clothing form part of ‘Thinking of You’ in Pristina, Kosovo.
IMAGE: VALDRIN XHEMAJ/EPA
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A woman views the art installation ‘Thinking of You’ in Pristina, Kosovo on June 12, 2015.
IMAGE: VALDRIN XHEMAJ/EPA
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An up close look at ‘Thinking of You’ in Pristina, Kosovo.
IMAGE: VALDRIN XHEMAJ/EPA
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Clothing lines make up multiple rows as part of ‘Thinking of You’ in Pristina, Kosovo.
IMAGE: VALDRIN XHEMAJ/EPA
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Additional reporting by the Associated Press

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