Lana Vasiljevic, sculptor whose works are in the collection Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade (among other things), she titled her new project in Subotica, in Palata Reichl (Contemporary Gallery Subotica), "Heterotopias: nine installations in nine rooms". Heterotopias, or other places, places within places, places that become visible only when a particular perspective of observation is offered or find connections where there are none at first glance, or are not visible.
"WEATHER" In your works, things are usually found in one place, which in reality can only be brought together by chance. By what criteria do you connect the unconnected?
LANA VASILJEVIC: All things happen all the time and are often invisibly interconnected, so coincidence does not exist for me. When that turn takes place inward, toward the subconscious, then the invisible becomes a reservoir of knowledge and feelings.
In my work, I create ambient sculptural compositions, full of symbols. I recognize and reinterpret existing objects by creating new objects, texts, photo-records, I place them in complex constellations that then acquire other meanings. In this way, I create for myself a different order from the reality that is given to us. I record fragments of personal states, and this archeological process of constructing a new one becomes a specific form of my personal emotional recycling. These are signposts that invite us to think about the in-between space that we often only sense...
Installations can be seen as sign records, a new language or poetry and speak of time, space, transience, loss, longing, melancholy, change, traces of existence - universal themes that are always present. It is interesting how, observed over a long period of time, human conditions and emotions do not change or change much more slowly than other technological, ideological and other phenomena in society... I find these things interesting and I call them universal.
Archaeological process... You have a project. (or work) which is called "Archeology of memory" and which you have been working on for 15 years already. What is it about??
I have been photographing houses in one area of Belgrade (Dedinje and Senjak) for some time now. Later, I process them monochromatically, then print them on clay tiles and then intervene with a drawing on top of that. There we see a different time, a history that walked through dark streets, an accumulation of different stories... In that room, in addition to those terracotta records, there is also an uprooted tree with roots, a graphite-gold book hanging in the space with the house that has the magic of slanted light, as well as a black tombstone with the word carved on it Agreement… Everything is loaded there.
The process of building a world takes a long time, and we tend to tear it down and replace it at a moment's notice. I think there is something in that, in those houses... Surviving for hundreds of years, like a secret. In this urban vortex, various construction paradoxes are encountered, as well as carelessness in the treatment of nature, which was dominant there before. When a nation is infantile, it means that it does not learn from its own experience, it erases its past. This calculation is constantly at work in urban planning as well. When you travel in Italy, Spain and many other countries, you notice a commitment to harmony and tradition. Buildings, entrances, doors, courtyards mostly preserved their original form and were carefully restored. Unfortunately, we do not have that continuum and we forget that it is precisely art, observed over time, that remains and marks a people.
photo: Edvard Molnar...
In one installation, pieces of furniture that normally stand on the ground seem to emerge from the wall. The scene is full of humor. (a bit like Dali), but at the same time it leaves us in awe of its seriousness.
That work is "Ode to creation". The specific measure-mess in which I function. The objects in it are connected and filled with meanings and different experiences, both private and collective. We see the chairs, taken apart. From there the thought process begins, as we sit, think and work. And then a new world appears, we go to what is under the chair as a jump into the unknown, into dreams, into the secret processes of the very act of creation... A photograph of the workbench from the studio appears, then a desert, a book, a sword, tree bark, architecture pronouns somewhere-elsewhere, where-where, stones, fortress, keyhole, golden mirror, envelopes/soap, landscapes, urns... And there is the word misunderstanding because art is born from misunderstandings. The process of work is important to me, it slows down events, rethinks them so that the thought lasts.
Otherwise, each of us is free to recognize and learn our own thoughts and interpretation of works... Mind maps differ. You have recognized the humor and I am glad for that because it is also often present, sometimes as a form of paradox or unexpectedness...
Mess. Coincidence, you say, does not exist for you. But isn't the disorder a kind of proof of coincidence?, while your works are an attempt to navigate that mess? Isn't creation the introduction of some sort of order into the original chaos?
Yes, but Order is never stable without contact with Chaos. I believe that there is potential for wholeness in Chaos. The challenge is to tame the chaos but also to remain in it, as a source of inspiration. There have been symbols of chaos in my works before - an abyss, a dark ocean, a desert, a broken house... And the question coincidences for me it's a question of synchronicity. Various events are interconnected by sense and meaning, although we do not always see these parallel connections at the right time. It is an ideal combination of our inner world with the outer world that surrounds us. For me, synchronicity is also the time that refers to the connection of the perception of an art object with a certain event or life experience that the object emits.
Through personal fine-tuning, when the layers of the defined and the learned are removed, the fields open up for various meaningful coincidences and discoveries. Those games are interesting to me and I develop them in the process of connecting objects, building a sculptural installation.
Striking a balance is a matter of style and personal boundaries, and the question of identity is ultimately a matter of honesty.
You have papers with texts in the picture frames (which mean nothing) or the papers are filled with signs. In the same place, therefore, we find conflicting meanings. In one place, actually, we have two places, heterotopia. What do heterotopias tell us??
Heterotopias are duplicated spaces, worlds within worlds. A new space that lives in reality, but in which rules, relationships and time behave differently... This concept was introduced by Michel Foucault. While working on this exhibition, that was not my starting point, but over time, looking for a word that would unite all the worlds I was building, I realized that they are heterotopias. In my installations, you can recognize - libraries, reflections of existing architecture, fragments of the Internet, ships, cemeteries... and all that, in the theoretical sense, are heterotopias. It was also very important for me to look back at the historical and temporal determinants of the space itself and feel the accumulation of some other stories...
What does it mean "historical-the time determinant of the space itself"?
I thought about the installation in relation to the exhibition space of the Contemporary Gallery itself, as well as to its architectural, ambient and temporal layers. The gallery is located in the Reichl Palace, which was built at the beginning of the last century. It is an imposing ambience, which consists of several large rooms on the first floor in a distinctly Art Nouveau style. Thus, architecture itself becomes an active participant in the artistic process.
The palace was built by Ferenc Reichl, a famous architect, for his family. He worked for a long time on every detail and she is truly a masterpiece. Unfortunately, they only lived there for three years and after the bankruptcy, it belonged to the bank, then to other tenants, and it was also a hospital during the Second World War. Looking at several photos that are displayed at the entrance of the building, which belong to the beginning of the last century, I thought about those people, their stories, customs, secrets and friendship. Of course, each room had its own purpose, and I partially incorporated that knowledge into the works, as a kind of dualism of space and time.
For example, the work with chairs - "Ode to Creation", which we talked about a little while ago, was placed in the "Men's Room", which was a room for contemplation and work, a smoking room, a place for serious conversations and men's socializing. Now, through unfolded objects, my sign system has settled into it, in which a personal search for harmony and meaning is recognized.
