bojanasknezevic

A QUEEN OF MONTENEGRO
audio-visual installation / performance / drawings / video / objects (2021/2018)
Link to the latest performance documentation: Gusle Miniatures at the Center for Cultural Decontamination
My family background and heritage is linked to the rural areas of Montenegro. In Montenegro female members are explicitly and systematically oppressed, neglected, and erased from the family memory. The roots of my family tree can be followed through the centuries, representing only male members. Within the investigation, I subvert this patrilinear order by reconstructing a traditional oral history which puts to the fore the personal histories of my female ancestors. The search for the “lost names” and the desire to tear the erased female family members from oblivion results in an open artistic process that consists of series of artworks and performative interventions, in response to the centuries of exclusion and discrimination.

In the current phase of the ongoing project I am focused on sound and visual interventions, as well as the sonic deconstruction of Gusle. This (one) string instrument, which is in traditional Montenegro exclusively reserved for male family members, is most often associated with epic narratives and oral tradition, which are passed down from generation to generation. With the experimental treatment of the instrument, as well as the specific way of playing that produces sound, between noises, creaks and melodies, I propose an alternative reading of family history, with an intention of creating a fictional narrative in which male and female positions and relations are shifted and reconstructed.

List of the artworks released within the project:
Self-portrait (color photograph); I am not, therefore I don’t think (video, experimental musical performance on Gusle); Conversations (4-channel audio installation); Where I was not born (performance, intervention / reconstruction of the family tree, drawings); Gusle Miniatures (sound installation and performance on Gusle)

Exhibitions:
December 2021 / A Queen of Montenegro 2021/2018 (audio-visual installation); A Queen of Montenegro - Gusle Miniatures (performance), The Center for Cultural Decontamination, Belgrade
September 2021 - January 2021 / A Queen of Montenegro, 937 Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA, US
April 2018 / A Queen of Montenegro, Gallery SULUV, Novi Sad, Serbia
June 2018 / A Queen of Montenegro, SULUJ Gallery, Belgrade, Serbia