“Oh beautiful, oh dear, oh sweet freedom!” is a series of performances that were created as a reaction to the political discourse of the former minister of culture of Croatia Mr Zlatko Hasanbegović. They were also a reaction to the political decisions that he made affecting the freedom of speech and freedom of independent media. Performances were done as a series as they were imagined to be realised regularly during the whole time the former minister was in power.
The name for this series is from Ivan Gundulić and his poem about freedom which in local Croatian art history and media landscape is a toponym for artistic expression about freedom. Performances were performed in public spaces as well as Museum of Contemporary Art and each was also a part of a wider trend of artistic resistance in Croatia at the time.
This series were built through the format of performing – from the solo performance to the final group performance in which 50 citizens participated in public space. Performances were documented with photography and video and a book was also published with all the texts and photos. Each performance left behind artefacts that can follow a gallery type setting of re-creating the performances as a repeated experience.
