Arch of Titus, Napoleonic armies conquering Europe, Allies marching in liberated cities, Soviet tanks entering Budapest in 1956 or Prague in 1968, a single man defying the Chinese military on Tian An Men square in 1989… The “Military parade” immediately triggers flows of images that reflect a diversity of epochs and places (the military parade is as old and spread as war) and contradictory meanings (from the celebration of triumph echoed by the cheers of enthusiastic crowds to the ominous display of oppression greeted only by silence).

May it be the Triumph procession of the Romans or the North-Korean show-off of nuclear missiles, may it be announced by the sound of parading boots or the roar of tanks, the military procession proves to be a complex visual, representational, and semiotic figure that combines glory, humiliation, defeat, victory, challenge, fate, joy, and sorrow. As the parade progressively takes possession of the city, it proclaims the destiny of the country on the geopolitical chess and marks the places called to become one day realms of memory.

In that sense, the military parade is a paradoxical narrative written by, through its own movement. It is anchored in time as it signals specific events such as the end of a conflict, the liberation, the national independence, or the beginning of occupation. At the same time, it transcends temporality because it is a part of a cyclic, commemorative apparatus. It is one of the dimensions where the national storytelling can be engraved. At the same time, it belongs to the universal vocabulary of power.

As such, the military parade is an icon, elaborated over centuries, and subject to endless re-configurations and re-appraisals. It is a migrating image of army force to be loaded with renewed significations. As time passed, the war booty, captives, and priests of the Roman procession have given way to impressive lethal machines. Through the military parade thus, it is the history of war that is to be deciphered. But not only: the very notions of power structure and civilization are also called into question. Which memory is to be adopted? Should commemoration only be based on the glorification of war acts? What can be the place of the military? What do governments seek when resorting to such dramatization? Can peace be written without such symbols? Let us not forget either: the military parade is urban. For a few hours, the city becomes the stage of army power. As the cleavage civilian/military unfolds for a short period of time, the public space becomes the stake between two visions of society.

The project of Enrique Ježik, by attempting to “paralyze” for a moment this mobile display of power, provides us with the opportunity to carefully observe it; reflect in depth the aforementioned issues; deconstruct the mechanisms of power representation and imagery elaboration; and investigate our own place facing narratives of national identity, war, and history – that is our responsibility as citizens, carriers of memory, and actors-creators of the public sphere.

As well, the project of Enrique Ježik questions the impact of artistic practices and discourses. Where actually is the Potemkin village? Could it be in the artistic endeavor to stop the machine, and bring it to a neutralizing stand still? Is it in the defying gesture of the flesh and blood David against the metal Goliath?

Without any provocation, rather by pointing to debates that have stirred up the Slovenian society these past years and been core issues in the last decade for the civil society in former Yugoslavia, the skilful deconstruction of power representation, imagery of violence, and artistic gesture proposed by Enrique Ježik sets up the critical distance that is necessary for the re-appraisal of “national identity” and new forms of solidarity.