Remember the Non-Aligned Movement? After the end of the Cold War, this forum of countries independent of any major power blocs faded in the background, but in its glory days, it held the promise of a “third way” beyond the canonical East and West. “Stories from Around the Non-Aligned” at Berlin’s BHROX by Slovak artist Olja Triaška Stefanović spotlights the NAM’s iconography, layering political, architectural and personal artifacts. 

Stefanović assembles an array of found objects, interspersed by large-scale photographs and videos, enveloping visitors in the NAM’s hopeful and ambitious atmosphere. The objects include covers of the Zagreb student newspaper Solidarnost, a Non-Aligned world map overlaid with a photo of the artist as a child, postcards, family photos, stamps, and a large collage of cropped flower bouquets from official events. Two videos depict the clipping of those articles set to a recording of John F. Kennedy talking about the NAM and quiet mirrored shots of the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines. 

The NAM can only be understood within the circumstances of the Cold War. Geopolitics are omnipresent, with the two major powers hovering in the background. One is represented with a photograph of the Queens Unisphere, and the other by an enormous print of an interior from the Stasi headquarters, placed across crops of remnants of the Berlin Wall. Despite its initiation by Josip Tito, newspaper clippings and official maps of member states such as Bangladesh or Madagascar underscore that the NAM was rooted in the Global South. Stefanović’s personal photos and artifacts are crucial in complementing this top-down perspective with a personal history. 

The key to appreciating the show is that it is as much an art installation, as it is about geopolitics. Missing translations and labels can be frustrating, often requiring visitors to resort to Googling and reverse image searching. Much remains impenetrable to visitors unable to read Serbo-Croatian, yet the pieces collectively evoke a vivid sense of place and time. The show is not a history lesson. It works brilliantly on a personal and an atmospheric level, successfully reviving and tracing the NAM’s legacy.

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