First Steps in a Terra Incognita

First Steps in a Terra Incognita (2002)
4 1/2 min.
by Lynne Sachs

House of Drafts/ Dom Promaha is a virtual apartment building inhabited by the imaginary characters created by eight Bosnian and two American media artists. Our characters have refused the opportunities of exile and instead have chosen to stay in Sarajevo. We invite you to enter this apartment building through our website or by watching the tape as a way of meeting the characters who live here.

This building relies on an architecture comprised of images, sounds and text. The project as a whole is shaped by our autobiographical experiences as they are filtered through poetic reflections, original music, and video. From a performance artist who moonlights as a de-miner, to a cinematographer who uses his camera to turn a decaying Sarajevo into a bustling Bangkok, to a traveler caught by the inferno of a burning library — the website and corresponding video represent our ruminations on a city and its inhabitants during and after a period of war. On the website you are invited not only to enter and explore our House of Drafts but also to participate by leaving your own writing and images on the walls of the space.

Created by Jeanne C. Finley (San Francisco) and Lynne Sachs (New York) with the participation of Larisa Hasanbegovic, Adla Isanovic, Timur Makarevic, Tvico Muhidin, Alma Suljevic and Enes Zlater (Sarjevo, Bosnia Herzogovina).