Stops in Time 2015

When I think about my identity, through the dimension of time, I find inspiration in my old family photographs. To me, these photographs are holding the mystery of old times. They become spontaneous stops in time at which it is possible to get the answers to the questions I am asking myself: Who am I? Who are we? Which sequence of events was needed for my existence / for anyone's existence? Is my life similar to the lives of my ancestors? In my search for the answers and for these stops in time, one of the starting points was Belgrade's Block 45, the location of the Blok gallery in which I am exhibiting my new series of drawings. I had lived in Block 45 from the day I was born until the age of six. I also lived there some years later as a young mother.

The drawings from this series are inspired by the original photographs of my family made during the period 1940 – 2001. They present monochromatic portraits of my ancestors as well as that of younger family members.

The work Teresa and Ivona 1975 is directly connected to my earliest memories from Block 45. It presents the scene in which my aunt Theresa is holding me on her shoulders. I was one year old then. We were standing on the outskirts of Block 45 and watching an airplane land at the former airport Surcin. In front of us we could see a never-ending landscape and the rim of Belgrade City, while on the horizon the dry summer grass was touching the sky. I instilled into this work my memories of that situation, awakening the sense of pleasantness, intimacy, and freedom in me, and the feeling that the upcoming future would be exciting and full of various life opportunities.

When I think about my identity, through the dimension of time, I find inspiration in my old family photographs. To me, these photographs are holding the mystery of old times. They become spontaneous stops in time at which it is possible to get the answers to the questions I am asking myself: Who am I? Who are we? Which sequence of events was needed for my existence / for anyone's existence? Is my life similar to the lives of my ancestors? In my search for the answers and for these stops in time, one of the starting points was Belgrade's Block 45, the location of the Blok gallery in which I am exhibiting my new series of drawings. I had lived in Block 45 from the day I was born until the age of six. I also lived there some years later as a young mother.

The drawings from this series are inspired by the original photographs of my family made during the period 1940 – 2001. They present monochromatic portraits of my ancestors as well as that of younger family members.

The work Teresa and Ivona 1975 is directly connected to my earliest memories from Block 45. It presents the scene in which my aunt Theresa is holding me on her shoulders. I was one year old then. We were standing on the outskirts of Block 45 and watching an airplane land at the former airport Surcin. In front of us we could see a never-ending landscape and the rim of Belgrade City, while on the horizon the dry summer grass was touching the sky. I instilled into this work my memories of that situation, awakening the sense of pleasantness, intimacy, and freedom in me, and the feeling that the upcoming future would be exciting and full of various life opportunities. In my journey through time, I stopped several times, most often at the scenes in which a mother holds a baby in her arms. Then I would jump about twenty years in time and use a moment caught by camera as an inspiration for my next drawing. In that drawing, I would again present the scene of mother with child, but the mother who was herself the child in my previous drawing. In my next work I am juxtaposing a portrait of my daughter Tasja when she was five years old with a portrait of myself, in which I am also five years old. In this way I have compared and linked the lived histories with the lives which are, in this series of works, connected in a unique present moment which is transmitting all the lived experience on the viewer.

Energy, emotions and personal histories are transferred from generation to generation. Through heritage, powerful sense of connection, intimacy and unity is maintained, even between family members who have never met one another.