Zoran Poposki, Here (The Border), 2007, digital video, DVD, stereo, 6:38 minutes. In collaboration with Jane Stefanov.

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Here by Zoran Poposki is a performance about the relationship between personal and collective identity, as well as the limitations of the local, symbolized by the artist’s attempt to get into a traditional Macedonian dress. The title is Here, in the sense that the individual is always already present in his or her own culture. 

The costume is one that the artist's grandmother made herself when she was just a little girl, 70 years ago, as part of her dowry for her groom to be, Poposki's grandfather, who lived in five different countries without ever leaving his home (borders are a pretty fluid thing in the Balkans).

The background music is a loop of the opening beats of a famous Macedonian folk dance (in fact, it is the folk dance, the ur-dance of all Macedonian dances, or "oro" as it's called in Macedonia). Called "Teshkoto" ("the heavy one"), it's a slow folk dance that gradually picks up the pace, danced exclusively by men.

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Screenings:
Refresh: Projections of new media at MAP, 2009, Museo de Arte de Ponce, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Identitetet, 2009, Kosovo Art Gallery, Prishtina, Kosovo.

Identities, 2009, Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje.

Kargart Uluslararasi Video Festivali, 2008, Istanbul, Turkey.

Borderlands, 2008, South Seattle Community College Art Gallery, Seattle, USA.

Trajectories, 2008, WooLoo New Life Gallery, Berlin, Germany (curated by Sixten Kai Nielsen and Martin Rosengaard).

Solo Exhibition, Tocka Culture Center, 2007, Skopje, Macedonia.