Recipient of the School of Art Honours Travelling Grant.
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NISAM SPAVALA ALI SAM LEŽALA (I WASN’T SLEEPING BUT I WAS LAYING)
Looking, touching, being; my research-based practice is an investigation of these three elements in relation to my position in the former-Yugoslavian diaspora. I provide an autoethnographic perspective by examining the affective experience of looking (at artifacts of the past), touching (materials and forming new possibilities) and being (present in a particular place).
My practice is largely focused on the material investigation of archival matter as a means of understanding the diasporic experience. Through examining the space between the public and the private, and experimenting with scale and materiality, I aim to provide new perspectives on the form and function of archives. Through developing a multi-disciplinary practice which spans ceramics, sculpture, video and photography, I mirror the heterogeneous nature of archives while also exploring the possibilities of utilising and presenting them in unexpected ways.
The medium of clay became a particularly pertinent material as I realised its ability to embody the fluidity, changeability and uncertainty of emotion, memory and diasporic phenomenology. Through exploring the various states of clay, while simultaneously considering and engaging with other mediums, I aim to find new ways to create discourse around migration and diaspora, subvert the aesthetics of memory and the archive, and explore the relationship between affect and materiality.
