Mass/Remains

In a massive crowd I found a man, with a memory of a man who had faded away on the TV screen, even after switch-off, he still remains. My vision sometimes tries to recreate him as "my him". After 25 years I was taken to his place guided by the memories in order to penetrate his memory.

Mass/Remains is an on-going project that tries to discover the movement of the football histories during the 90s in former Yugoslavia which ended up to influence Japanese football milestone being involved a general media and personal footsteps, and a journey in my brain to seek a real man whom I had taken a look in my dream.

On 13 May 1990, at a football stadium in Zagreb, Red Star Belgrade vs Dinamo Zagreb. Through the TV in Japan, I still remember I just wondered why such a riot happened in a football game. A lot of spectators, hooligans and police all jumbled up and rolled into the field. They looked like a flock of waves rather than only a mob. I was 8 at that time, a couple of years before the professional football league (J-League) started in Japan. Over time, many Yugoslavian players came to Japan in the mid of the 90s, Dragan Stoikovich who was a great football player in the history of Europe was to join a football team, of course as a player. I was just excited without knowing why he had to play in Japan at the very peak of his career. I also played football when I was a teenager to be like him.

In 2016 in Belgrade, I met a Serbian man who was in the riot at that time and also whom I have watched several times in the football games in Tokyo when I was kids. His name is Miša Bukumirovic, 70, married with a Croatian wife and he has worked as a single official physiotherapist for Red Star Belgrade since 1986.