OPA falls through a rabbit hole into a subterranean fantasy world populated by wax creatures and freshly made history paintings. The world, created between 2008-2011, was for several years called “The Museum of the Macedonian Struggle for Sovereignty and Independence, Museum of VMRO, Museum of the Victims of the Communist Regime”[1]. People believe it is haunted with the curse and propaganda of a fugitive dictator.
[1] “The Museum of the Macedonian Struggle for Sovereignty and Independence, Museum of VMRO, Museum of the Victims of the Communist Regime”, built between 2008-2011 (in Skopje, North Macedonia), was part of the propaganda machinery project titled Skopje 2014, which was conducted by the then-ruling nationalist party. The Museum exhibited a number of newly commissioned history paintings and over 100 wax figures of historical individuals. Visits were mandatorily guided. The Museum was designed to support a strong national identity, but also to introduce anti-communist discourse as a political tool for isolating the political left as anti-Macedonian. In 2018 the Museum’s legitimacy was questioned in an evaluation. The museum was found to be an intrusion into the Macedonian identity corpus, under an ideological coloration that promotes the myths of a specific political party. At the same time, the Museum was described as an insult of the professional museology standards. Its name was finally changed in “The Museum of the Macedonian Struggle” and its displays [and narratives] are currently under transformation. See: Valerie Hopkins, Let Them Eat Alexander the Great Statues and Goran Janev, Skopje 2014: Instrumentalizing Heritage for Unexpected Results.
Further reading:
Psychoanalysis “Post-truth”: US Election Special, The Freud Museum, London (1.11. – 8.11. 2020)