‘Active (citizen)’ – Can anyone be an activist? – a multiscreen installation
Piotr Goldstein & Jan Lorenz, 2022
‘Active (citizen)’ is the first film of the Visualising the Invisible project, which looks at the ‘invisible activism’ of ethnic minorities and migrants who engage in causes beyond those important for their own community. The production of the film was motivated by an observation that when we talk about active citizenship, or even more broadly, activism, we tend to think of people who work for charities and NGOs or engage in social movements. But what happens when someone cannot afford this type of activity? Does that mean that such a person can never be an active citizen, an activist?
‘Active (citizen)’ shows a working day in the life of Driton – a Roma man, a refugee from Kosovo living in northern Serbia, who supports his family on an average of eight euros a day. It conceptualises activism as going out of one’s way for the benefit of other people and draws the viewer’s attention to ‘acts of activism’, which are all that our protagonist can afford.
The film is a visual ethnography focused on the material, sensorial and kinaesthetic realities of the protagonist’s work and its political and social significance – the daily activism beyond the scope of public recognition. It approaches the question of the affordability of activism as it is conceptualised by people like us – middle-class academics and activists.
In this four-screen installation using footage originally used in the film, as well as material which was not used in its single-screen 30-minute version, we offer viewers the opportunity to explore and focus on different aspects of Driton’s life: his everyday work, his relations with other people and institutions in Novi Sad, his memories of war and life in Kosovo, and his ‘everyday activism’.
The installation can be set up in different spaces and is available free of charge for educational and
community purposes. The description is taken from source