Days
The residency ran to five nights and the announced programme to two. What happened on the days in between is recorded here, since it gave the edition as much of its shape as the exhibition and the film did.
Bobovac
Bobovac was begun by ban Stjepan II Kotromanić shortly before the middle of the fourteenth century, held by the Bosnian kings until 1463, and has been a ruin ever since. The description under which it is registered as a national monument places it on the southern slopes of the Dragovska and Mijakovska poljica, above the confluence of the Mijakovska river and the Bukovica, close to the villages of Dragovići and Mijakovići. Mijakovići lies higher, on Perun, so the fortress is approached from above.
In the cistern beside one of the towers there is still water. Something lives in it that rises to the surface after insects. We take it for a mrmoljak, a newt, though nobody looked closely enough to be certain.
Bobovište
Bobovište is a field and orchard up the mountain, belonging to Šaban and Nadža Ibrišimović, who are neighbours. We went up in a TAM lorry, the Yugoslav-built type still in service on these slopes. The afternoon went in mowing their meadow, in picking ašlame, the firm-fleshed cherry that grows on their trees, and in gathering zova and žara, elder and nettle.
The cut grass stayed on the meadow. Hay is not carried on the day it is cut, and it was still lying there when the artists left on the twenty-second. The elder and the nettle came back with us the same evening and were laid out to dry for tea; the elder also went into syrup.
Kantarion, St John's wort, was in flower along the same margins and was left standing. It is picked in July, and July belongs to a later residency period.
Oćevija
Three water-powered forges are still working in Oćevija, kept by the Jozeljić, Gogić and Vijačkić families and protected as a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are known here as majdani. The hammer is driven by the river Oćevica and the iron is heated on ćumur, charcoal burnt for the purpose.
We spent the visit at Mijo Jozeljić's forge, together with Šaban Ibrišimović, who lives next door and directs the tourist board of the Zenica-Doboj Canton. We left with a kazan, a trnokop, an axe and a peka. All four are in use at the residency.
A monument of this order is sustained by the market for what it makes, so the visit that ends in a purchase does more to keep it standing than the visit that ends in a photograph.
What came back
Elder and nettle, dried and stored for tea. Elder syrup. A cauldron, a mattock, an axe and a baking bell, all in use. Hay, left on the meadow until it was ready, and carried in after the week was over.
