The National Gallery of Macedonia “Cifte Amam” in Skopje
The thematic program of CRIC is created with the goal to stimulate critical debate in the public sphere, a crucial component in the promotion of the socio-cultural capital being a core deeply ingrained within the most relevant political and societal themes: human rights, the right to culture, identity issues, violence in the public sphere through the political and economical apparatus, as well as strengthening of communities through cultural and artistic practices.
From Diaspora to Diversities
Exhibition 1. Participating artists: Ivana Ivković, Rajko Radovanović, Mladen Bundalo, Neli Ružić, Nada Prlja, diSTRUKTURA
Curators: Miroslav Karić, Janka Vukmir
The cycle of exhibitions organized as part of the regional project From Diaspora to Diversities aims to clarify some of the topics and issues related to the phenomenon of diaspora in contemporary contexts through the artistic production and practice of authors from different generations. Meditating upon the notion of diaspora itself, beyond the predominant ethnocentric and ethnic definitions, the project focused its research on a wide variety of experiences of both temporary and permanent dislocations from the original environments, that is to say, of living and/or working ‘somewhere abroad’. The re-defining of the notion of diaspora has been the focus of theoretical debate for quite some time now. These discussions have been further stimulated by the new constellations produced by the global social and political, technological and communication trends and developments, by the increase in international mobility or, to put it differently, by the intensification of cultural nomadism through hyper-production of international events and artistic and other residences throughout the world. What are the experiences in the artists’ every day and professional life, what are the challenges in their adjustment and interaction with the specificities of the other environments are the starting point of this project’s research of the different kinds of life in diaspora and of the reasons behind the migration of the authors with origins from the Western Balkans to the international artistic and cultural stage.
The three exhibitions realized so far took place in the gallery Remont (Belgrade) and presented the work of artists who treat the topic of migration identities and the sense of displacement within their new domicile environments through the lens of different existential circumstances and through divergent poetic and aesthetic concepts. The works exhibited as part of this project range, in a thematic sense, from direct exploration of the contemporary and/or historical social and political milieus of the European countries, closer to our region and mentality, to much more distant and unfamiliar regions, such as America and the Middle East. Photography, video, objects, drawings, art books, (psycho-geographic) maps, archival and documentary material were just some of the media and the tools used by the authors in their artistic expression to help them transfer their experiences and relations to the dynamics, the mentality and the differences in the identity of the cities, states, geographical regions, social milieus they inhabited temporarily or permanently.
The closing exhibition in Skopje presents the five artists and the artistic duo who have participated in this project and whose work and its thematic content open a wide spectrum of questions: about the perception of the ‘other’ and ‘different’; about the home and the belonging; about the problem of social and cultural integration and immigration policies; about nomadic existence and travel seen as a process of introspection; about the phenomenon of time in the context of changes or of interrelatedness among different cultures and societies; about the urban landscape as a cultural and symbolic construct; about the influence and effects of the mass media images on the every day life in contemporary societies…