With the sculptor Adis Fejzić, the first sculptor with the title of doctor in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we talked about stećci, which for him is more than cultural heritage. 12.02.2017 16:22 By Đorđe KRAJIŠNIK Sculptor Adis Fejzić became the first sculptor with the title of Doctor of Science in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Fejzić earned his PhD at Griffith University College of Art in Brisbane (Australia), and in his scientific research, he analyzed the art of the stećak (tombstone) in the context of contemporary artistic and socio-anthropological circumstances but also (re)actualized the stećak as his personal metaphor and contemporary creative expression. When he talks about what stećaks are for him, Fejzić quotes the poet Mako Dizdar: "A stećak is for me what is not for others, what others did not know how to see on it and in it." It seems that you became the first sculptor with a doctoral degree in BiH; how did the process of your doctoral work go, and what are the final results? - Yes, it seems that I am the first sculptor in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the title of Doctor of Science. I started my research at Griffith University College of Art as a so-called professional doctorate, i.e., a doctorate of visual arts (Doctorate of Visual Arts) with an emphasized practical-creative component. However, with the presentation of the first results, along with confirmation of the validity and scope of my research, I also received an assessment from the university committee that even the initial, working version of my thesis is outside the scope of a professional doctorate in visual arts. Thus, I continued to develop the research more intensively in the direction of doctoral studies, according to the standards of the title PhD (Doctor of Philosophy), or, as we know it, the classical doctorate (dr. sci), which entailed scientific research through a theoretical and practical approach. I didn't do that because I like to kill myself with work, but because, by some "karmic trick," I was born with a talent in the form of a talent to often make two or three jobs for myself. 
Carving Jazz After a series of presentations, realized monumental and public sculptures, exhibitions, and other creative interventions, I ended my research last year with a final exhibition and dissertation in the format of a classic PhD. The committee composed of an independent multidisciplinary team of experts from other universities awarded me the title of Doctor of Philosophy (Doctor of Science, Dr. Sci) with extremely positive reviews and theoretical and practical research results. I originally conceived this research as "purely sculptural," but soon I began to apply a multimethodological and multidisciplinary approach. In finding a balance between visual and aesthetic with historical, sociological, and cultural factors, my supervisory team was made up of three professors: sculptor Sebastian di Mauro (Griffith University, Queensland College of Art), anthropologist Hariz Halilović (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) was of invaluable help, and historian Dubravko Lovrenović (University of Sarajevo), whom, unfortunately, we tragically lost recently. During that process, you dealt with acquisitions; why are they important to you in the framework of your artistic and scientific work? - I think that stećci is the most authentic phenomenon in the art of the Western Balkans in general. A whole series of stećak necropolises from today's four countries (BiH, Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro) was included in UNESCO's list of world cultural heritage in 2016, which confirmed the stećak as a cultural heritage of local and global importance. Still underexplored, the stećci opens many questions and leaves room for additional research. For me, even after my doctorate, the stećci represents an open field for continuing research work and a natural foundation and inspiration for creative work. They are important to me both as a sculptor and as a Bosnian, but with the emphasis that the stećak has a deeper meaning for me than the one that defines it exclusively as a medieval tombstone and cultural heritage. In this sense, by carving my "modern stećaks," I am also the inheritor of the tradition, but at the same time, I am also creating a new value. This creation of the new and different is also present in the very spirit of the stećak tradition because no two stećaks are the same. Even within relief representations composed on the principle of repetition of a certain motif, that motif was never identically repeated. In each of its repeated versions, the motif is always a new interpretation of itself. Medieval Bosnian masters "sculpted jazz." That principle of free variations and improvisations that I find on stećak is important and motivating for me as a creator. Despite its seemingly primitive and "clumsy" appearance and function as a gravestone, the stećak is a sculpture with a complex structure. My "new" understanding of stećak is based on innate sensibility but also on acquired education and creative experience in the field of stone sculpture. It seems to me that I have been preparing for a long time so that I could "suddenly" see the stećak both inside and outside in a different way. Mak Dizdar says, "Stećak is for me what is not for others, what others did not know how to see on it and in it." I think I can credibly stand behind Mako's statement. In the conversation before the interview, you told me that with your doctorate you opened up additional space for a different understanding of stećak. What is it about? My doctoral research on stećak art is a research-creative procedure that offers a new, additional interpretation of the stećak phenomenon in its sculptural and sociological aspects. In the stećak, I find an anachronistic hub of various sculptural contents and traditions—complexity and inspiration for the revival and (re)interpretation of tradition in the form of contemporary memorial sculpture and my artistic expression. Through the creative resurrection of the medieval tombstone, I am reviving and adapting this extinct tradition in the context of our time, thus transforming the five-century discontinuity into something that, perhaps egocentrically but also justifiably, I call the discontinuity of stećak. In addition to focusing on the purely sculptural content of the medieval stećak, I also researched its historical, political, and cultural significance. With this approach, I contributed to a deeper understanding of the stećak and its timeless sculpturality, which in my interpretation becomes, in a morphological and symbolic sense, a parallel to the Bosnian multidimensional identity. 
Eternity as a style Stećak is, in my opinion, the best symbol of what is popularly called a multicultural identity, but not only because the art of stećak emerges somehow parallel to the creation of Bosnia itself and what I define today as Bosnian identity. The stećak is the most appropriate symbol of the multicultural Bosnian identity because it, as a sculpture, is actually "multisculptural" in its character (this is a new word, a coin I made to adequately explain the stećak). In what respect are stećci, viewed from the point of view of sculpture, interesting as forms? - In many individual examples, the stećak most often functions simultaneously as a relief and as a so-called free sculpture. Stećci, as a sculptural tradition, are a globally unique phenomenon in the history of stone sculpture. This is already shown by the (final) classification of the shape of stećaks by Šefik Bešlagić, which opens up a space in which we can consider all medieval stone tombstones and cenotaphs found in these areas as stećaks. All these monuments include a wide range of shapes, from amorphous through a whole series of (the most numerous and famous) geometric and homomorphic shapes to anthropomorphic shapes. There is simply no sculptural tradition anywhere in the world that has such an inclusive quality. Then, the performances on stećci also include an extremely rich repertoire, from abstract and decorative through symbolic to figural motifs. In addition to all this, the "content" of some stećaks is complemented by carved texts, which are also the primary source for researching our Middle Ages and the stećaks themselves. These inscriptions, in addition to their informative and literary value, also visually enrich the stećaks on which they appear. Our medieval stonemasons used stećci to build an aesthetic that, with its "imperfection," is close to our modern taste. On stećci, we find a tendency towards free design and execution of forms in which only inconsistency is consistent. It is a raw visual version of that principle of creative freedom that, for example, jazz brought to the music of the 20th century. Improvisation with a structure behind it. Of course, the technical-technological execution of the shape of the stećaks and their reliefs is archaic and primitive, but that is another pair of gloves and does not diminish the importance of the previously mentioned qualities. Stećak for me is an amalgam in which sculpture, amulet, and architecture are combined into one and which, in an aesthetic sense, connects prehistoric stone sculpture with (post)modern stone sculpture. In this sense, the best brief description of stećak was given by Oto Bihalja Merin when he said that it is an art "in which eternity itself has become a style.".
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