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Tie
Around the Arena
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Title of work: TIE
AROUND THE ARENA;
from the original idea by Marijan Bušic,
coordinated by Mladen Marinovic, photograph (above) by Eduard Strenja –
digital press. dimension of photograph: 110 x 72 cm; 2003. |
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Marijan Bušić
Mladen Marinović
Eduard Strenja
Mladen
Marinovic has taken part in several joint exhibitions in
Croatia
and the European Union. Since 1993 he has been running the
Croata
design studio within the firm Potomac
d.o.o. He lives and works in Zagreb.
Eduard Strenja was born in 1953 in
Pula. He works for the daily newspaper Glas
Istre as a photographer and picture editor. He has held 45
independent exhibitions to date. He has published photographs in various
Croatian and foreign magazines.He lives and works in
Pula.
Source:
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https://www.academia-cravatica.hr/en/izazov_kravate/marinovic-strenja.html
(no longer online
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THE SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF THE
SPECTACULAR ART INSTALLATION
"A TIE AROUND THE ARENA"
After two years' preparation, in the afternoon of Saturday 18th October
[2003] the knot of the largest tie in the world was tied around the Pula
Arena. The creator of this grandiose art installation was prof. Marijan
Busic, the head of the non-profit making establishment "Academia
Cravatica", which promotes the tie as part of the Croatian and world
cultural heritage. The coordinator of the technical execution of the
installation was Mladen Marinovic, the head designer of the firm
Potomac-Croata. The designers of the idea and feasibility study were mr.
Sc. Damir Corko (for the part of the tie around the Arena) and dr. sc.
Bruno Calic (for the construction of the knot and the load bearing
construction outside the Arena). Academia Cravatica was responsible for
the entire art installation project, and the City of Pula was the
co-organizer.
This world scale "mega-tie" is of
incredible dimensions: it is 808 m long, and at its widest it measures
25 m. The knot of the tie is 15 m long, at its widest it is 16.5 m wide
and at its most narrow point it is 5.4 m wide. The height of the tie
from the narrowest to the widest part is 3.5 m. The execution of the art
installation began on Tuesday morning, when members of the Split
mountaineering society "Spirit, by climbing up around the Arena, began
setting up a net around the Arena, so that they could then fix the tie
to it.
This job took two days, then more than a
hundred Pula high-schoolers, standing around the Arena, held the tie
whilst the mountaineers gradually lifted it up to the top of the Arena.
The most difficult part - tying the knot of the tie - began on Saturday
morning. In the late afternoon, more precisely at around 5.30 p.m., the
knot was tied and the tie spread out to its full width of hundreds of
meters across the Pula Karolina car park. The entire unusual event was
followed from the early morning with great interest by hundreds of local
people and tourists, and in the afternoon there were several thousand
watching. This world scale cultural media spectacle aroused a great deal
of attention from the local and world media, including about ten
television companies, including CNN and ARD.
The tying of the knot
The tying of the knot of the Tie was
recorded several times from the air (by helicopter from the Ministry of
Defense) and what was probably the most beautiful sight of the entire
event began when, in order to spread out the lower part of the Tie
(below the knot), hundreds of local people became involved in a long
chain to take part in the installation, holding the Tie up. On the
recordings from the air, the Arena truly resembled the giant neck of
Veli Joze, as the creator of the installation Marijan Busic has said,
and the tie around the Arena was impressively similar to a normal tie
with a tied knot.
The sponsors
The sponsors of the art installation were
HEP (the Croatian electricity company) INA, Potomac-Croata and Adria
Lada. Croatian national television (HRT) will make a documentary about
this unique event. The importance of the art installation project "A tie
around the Arena" as a world scale cultural project by which the Arena,
Pula, Istria, Croatia and Croatian tourism have been promoted on a world
scale, has been recognized and given support by the Croatian Ministry of
Culture, the Ministries for European Integration, Tourism and Defense,
the Croatian Tourist Board, the Tourist Boards of the City of Pula and
the Istarska County and Croatia Airlines. The official cultural and
artistic program with the presentation of the installation was attended
by the vice-president of the Croatian Government Dr. Goran Granic, the
assistant minister for European Integration Davor Cilic, diplomatic
representatives from the embassies of France, Greece and Denmark, a
representative of the Japanese cultural institution "The Japanese House"
Jassuo Yamamoto, who is also a member of the Board of the Academia
Cravatica and many other important guests.
The Official Program
 At
the beginning of the official program (run by Lejdi Oreb) the mayor of
Pula dr. sc. Luciano Delbianco spoke on the significance of this event
for the city of Pula and Croatia as a whole. The coordinator of the
technical staging of the installation Mladen Marinovic spoke about how
this exceptionally complex project, in a technical and technological
sense, was realized. The creator of the installation Marijan Busic spoke
about the motives for his preoccupation with the tie and the message of
this art installation and amongst other things said, "While I was still
in high school I realized that Croatia, the home of the tie (cravat),
could best be presented to Europe and the world by means of the tie, as
a worldwide symbol of dignity, formality and success. In time I
discovered more and more the symbolic potential of the tie as a medium.
So the art installation "A Tie around the Arena" primarily draws
attention to the tie as a world phenomenon of communication, a medium
which communicates emotion, value and identity. Today in the conditions
of globalization, with the tendency to iron out cultural differences,
through this installation which brings together the ancient and the
modern era with Croatia, I would like to emphasize directly the value of
different identities. The red color of the tie, as a sign of love, which
is also the color of the Croatian coat-of-arms, and the red soil of
Istria, underlines the Croatian cultural identity and at the same time
its openness and belonging to the wider European cultural circle. The
metaphor of circles is also close to me (of Pula, Istria, Croatia,
Europe and the World), circles, which do not obliterate each other, but
rather complement and complete one another. The extraordinary size of
the art installation is conditioned by the size of the Arena, this
magnificent symbol of the Greek and Roman world. Since it is located
here in Istria, I spontaneously associated the Arena with the giant Veli
Joze and I imagined it as his gigantic neck."
The official program began at 3 p.m. with a
parade by the brass band and majorettes of the City of Pula. Also
included in the program were members of the "Uljanik" folk club and the
women's klapa singing group "Teranke" who for the first time performed
the song "Vez" (written by Daniel Nacinovic, music by Bruno Krajcar)
which was especially written for the occasion.
The composition "Balun" was also performed
(by Bruno Krajcar) which popularizes the unique Istrian musical scale
and the traditional Istrian dance. The dance was performed by the
"Stellium" dance group (choreography by Tatjana Samuele). Six couples
danced in costumes based on stylized Istrian folk costumes made by the
firm Potomac, who also are owners of the Croata brand. After the program
there was a reception and a happy time of socializing, for the guests,
the participants in the program and representatives of the media.
[The young couple Danijela and Denis from
Pula also took part in the official program, dressed in formal wedding
outfits. Their presence was a kind of living presentation of a "wedding
in the Pula Arena" the basic motif of the picture book "The Cravat of
Veli Jože or the fairy wedding in the Pula Arena". This new, illustrated
literary work (written by Daniel Nacinovic and Ivan Gregov) was produced
to mark the art installation and was inspired by it. The young couple
was also honored by the accompaniment of members of the "Turopolje
Honorable Guard" a historical Croatian unit from Turopolje. Turopolje is
incidentally, the home of the man's formal neck scarf the "podgutnica",
which according to some researchers is the oldest Croatian cravat (the
original cravat).]
The realization of the art installation
also gave rise to other cultural and artistic events. On Friday 17
October an exhibition of works by twenty artists was opened on the theme
of the tie. They donated all the works of art exhibited to the
non-profit making institution Academia Cravatica. There is a book, [as
mentioned before] to be launched next week (a picture book) entitled
"The tie of
Veli
Joze or the fairy wedding in the Pula Arena" (written by Daniel
Nacinovic and Ivan Gregov), in three versions - in Croatian, Italian and
English.
And finally one more interesting thing. The
final phase of the execution of the installation on Saturday was made
more difficult and slowed down by a strong bora wind. Precisely because
of the great vulnerability of the installation to wind, the lower part
of the tie was put away that same evening with the help of the local
people, but the knot and the part of the tie around the Arena was taken
down the next day, on Sunday. But the point of the art installation had
been achieved: a picture of the largest tie in the world had gone around
the globe! (Dino Bedrina)
Sources:
- Text - https://www.croata.hr/news/index.php
- Added text [inside square brackets] -
https://europedir.blogspot.com/2006/05/tied-around-pula-arena.html
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