Rise and Fall of Osvald
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A new and ancient world in making
Interview with Aleksandar ZografOsvald has many faces but many faces has Osvald as well. A lot comic authors would identify themselves with Osvald, since he’s a travelling guy – focusing on the details. Searching new stories and identities, we asked Serbian underground-master Aleksandar Zograf if he could contribute to the Comixiade website and give us a small observation on the topic of unheard voices. In his own original style he suggested the use of buildings as the ultimate unheard voices of European narratives. Next week we will publish his comic on architecture and buildings in Italy, but first a short interview with the guy that has seen most parts of Europe, but still finds the most precious inspiration in his hometown, dear Panchevo at the river Tamis.
Comixiade aims to create a cross-border European scene of comic authors. To what extent would you think it exists anyway? And what characterizes the European comics, when you compare them to the American ones?
It’s a complex question, to define European comics. I think that basically, it’s just a matter of geography. European comics artists are very much different among themselves, but also there are a plenty of differences between national scenes, Europe wide. I think that it’s a good and honest job to build connections between European scenes. It’s because the production is quite big, and there is hardly much at this point, which could unite all the people involved in creation or publishing of comics in the Old Continent. I mean, that’s if we speak about non-mainstream comics – and the funny thing is that, when I started to publish my comics in early 90s, there was hardly much going on in Europe, and the most exciting things were happening in US. So I managed to publish with the American magazines and publishing houses, and it was only in the late 90s that I connected more with the European scene. Still, even after participating to both American and European scene, I can hardly pin down the difference – I think that perhaps Americans are more aware of their own rich herritage of cartooning. In Europe, there were interesting proto-comics being produced in the 19th Century, but then there was a gap which lasted for several decades, in the times when in USofA modern comics were quite happening on the national scene, and they formed a culture that would influence even the underground comics movement in the 60s and the 70s, which didn’t really happen in Europe, not on that scale.
To what comic-scene do you feel part? Honestly, I don’t know - my situation is complex. I lived all my life in Panchevo, a small town in Serbia. I am most probably going to die there as well. So generally I’m part of that scene, whatever it is. Still, my first books were published in US, and then all around Europe. I love to travel, and I feel like, to some extent, belogning to all these different scenes, different realities. It maybe means that I can say that I just as well don’t belong anywhere, and it’s also nice – feeling of being FREE in wider context, not tied to a specific little boundary…
You’re travelling a lot in Europe, finding narratives on every corner. How do you do research or how you try to find the good narratives of places in Europe you visit?
I take a different approach in different places – as big part of my production of comics are actually travelogues, I’m bound to do a research about the places that I visit. But, a lot of times, I just let myself connect to the local reality, and find my story somewhere in the periphery – well, part of the excitement is actually based on the fact that you don’t really know what you will find in a foreign place. So I just open my eyes, and look around with curiosity of a child, or visitor from another planet…
Osvald, the protagonist of Comixiade, is a journalist, travelling everywhere and trying to explore identities, collect voices and faces. What would you suggest Osvald to travel to? Why?
Good old Osvald should go to the places not fully explored by the tourists. He should DISCOVER places, not just visit them. The reason is that it’s more active approach, more creative. If you wish, you can find details and places that most of the “programmed” tours are not considering at all! Some of the most exciting places in this planet are not marked in a tourist leaflets, ha ha.
In your piece for Comixiade you explore architecture and buildings in different places. What is your favourite building in Europe, for esthetic or emotional reasons, and why? What is the narrative of that building?
This is really a difficult question. I can’t point a single building, I’m always mesmerized by the different realities, different logics that architecture could evoke. Even a ruined little building at the end of the town could make me sing prises. Actually, many diverse arcitectural constructions could be interesting in their own way, but, in my perception, it’s usually a latest travel that creates it’s own fascinations. Recently I was in Istanbul, and I went to Aya Sofia (Hagia Sofia, in Greek), expecting that it’s part of a routine. Almost every tourist that comes there visits Aya Sofia – a city’s central ancient church (which was, during the time of the Ottoman domination, made into a mosque), and it sounded like not a big challenge. Plus, I am not a huge fan of big and spectacular churches – they usually seem to feed on our idea of power and posession.
And – I don’t know, maybe Aya Sofia was originally really built with such intentions, but the result is fascinating. The way that building was contructed, leaves your senses in a state of excitement. Design of the space, with all the details, and its pathina, leave you in silent awe. It actually does not looks particulary spectacular from the outside- but once that you enter it, it effects your mind somehow, in a way that is hard to verbalize… Hats down!
Architecture does have an identifying function, as you might see even on the paper money of the Euro currency! Do you attach to buildings? Can you identify with them?
I love buildings. I believe that they are more then dead objects, that most of us consider them to be. Buildings are reflecting, and shaping our ideas. As a child, I really had a deep, intuitive connection with the architectural sceneries.
Aleksandar Zograf during Strip It 2009, featuring many Comixiade-artists
Yes, Balkans is the great unkown to contemporary Europe. It’s actually quite intense place, which I have a feeling currently is not quite understood by the European establishment. Balkan is mostly perceived as a wild, archaic place, with people living unefficent lifestyles. I guess that it’s actually true, but it’s not the whole story… Thanks to my art, I have visited all the Balkan countries, and I think it’s where many exciting things are going to be discovered in the future. A lot of the stuff to be found there is not yet in a book, not even on the internet. You know, it’s full of archeological artefacts that still need to be unearthed. Full of natural parks which yet have to be explored. There are roads that still have to be built, towns that would have to be constructed. It is a fantastic new and ancient world in making. I believe that in few decades, Balkans is going to be seen as something different.
If Osvald would visit you in Panchevo, where would you bring him? And what would you discuss with him?
I would bring Osvald to the back streets. I would tell tell him that it’s a little town, of no great importance. But still, every reality, every place, no matter how poor or devastated, could be the center of your mental reality. It could be the blooming center of your creative forces. Center of your hopes and fears. Methropole of your dreams. Then I would ask Osvald, if he could see any of that in the ran down streets of Panchevo.
Can you give us a short idea of what we can expect from you in the near future? Are you working on new books and narratives? What about the dreams and the comics?
I’ve been exploring the ways of presenting the dream explorations in comics naratives in the past. I feel like I still haven’t said all about it in my works. But at the moment I’m continuing working on a weekly comics for Vreme, an independent political weekly magazine from Belgrade, and I’m collecting these stories in books that are published in different countries. At this very moment in time, I’m preparing for a trip to Portugal, and then Poland, where my new books have been published…
Please pose a question to the next artist that will publish on comixiade…
Have you ever been thinking of not just observing, but actually constructing a piece of architecture?
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