Annual pairing of ex-Yu artists.

Each year, we pair two artists from ex-Yu countries, who share mutual interests - be it a similar theme they are preoccupied with, a similar style of expression, or the medium they use. The projects are developed over three months and the results are presented in the countries of each artist’s origin.

The aim of the pairing is to create an opportunity for the artists to meet, get inspired by one another, and collaborate on a new work. Their collaboration can result in two separate bodies-of-work but needs to arise from the exchange of ideas, as well as the philosophical and creative support. Dialogue is what we wish to initiate.

Spajalica explores art as a form of dialogue.

2020/21

The pair chosen for 2020 are Marija Bjekić (Serbia) and Anja Dimitrijević (Serbia). Curated by Ira Ferris.
Shared interest: Memory & Architecture

Exhibition title: Grids and choreographies

About the exhibition: Grids and choreographies is a multimedia collaboration between Belgrade-born/based Marija Bjekić and Belgrade-born/Venice-based Anja Dimitrijević. Both artists are intrigued by brutalist architecture and how its geometric shape choreographs individual and communal movements. Marija investigates this theme through analogue collage and hyper-realist drawings based on the archival photographs from the official state archives and her own family albums. Anja explores the theme through the video work and urban choreography, filmed on the location of the buildings and the neighbourhood she grew up in. Both artists reflect on memories, be it individual or collective one, and question the impact that the architecture had on those.

Marija Bjekić (1979, Belgrade, Serbia) finished Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade and is currently completing PhD studies at the same faculty. Her work was shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Serbia and abroad. Marija Bjekić is mainly interested in reactivating and reflecting on utopian concepts and ideas of the 20th century. Her approach to this subject is in using both archival and contemporary images. Visual sources for her work are documentary photographs, film stills, project drafts, film posters and propaganda whose original context has mostly vanished. Also, private photo archives are important foundation, as they offer a glimpse into process of ad hoc memory construction. With the combination of these images, artist highlights the mechanisms through which our historic and cultural memory is formed. The works are fluctuating between history and imagination, renouncement and potential, past and present.

Anja Dimitrijević (1993, Belgrade, Serbia) lives between Belgrade and Venice. In 2018, she obtained Masters of Applied Theatre (theatre directing) at the IUAV University of Venice. Her professional experience is mainly in the field of screen-dance. In 2019, her experimental dance video Valle delle Sfingi was featured as part of the Australian project Dance Cinema and in a couple of exhibitions in Sydney. Anja has worked as cultural mediator for the Serbian and Danish pavilion at the Venice Biennale; and with Bunker Institute of Performing Arts in Ljubljana. As a performer she participated in productions of many international theatre and performance makers, including Boris Charmatz’s and Olivia Grandeville’s "Roman Project" at the Biennale Danza in 2015. In 2017, she worked as Director's Assistant on the opera project "Orpheus Moments" at the Biennale Musica. Anja is a founder and a member of Collettivo Confluenze, with whom she exhibited at the U10 gallery in Belgrade (2019) and facilitated an interdisciplinary mobile workshop ‘Planning for Transition’ at the salt marshes of Lio Piccolo in Venice (2019).

2018/19

The pair chosen for 2019 are Gordana Žikić (Serbia) and Maja Radešić-Zard (Croatia). Curated by Ira Ferris.
Shared interest: Shamanism in art

Exhibition title: Absence of Presence

About the exhibition: Both artists are exploring and expressing shamanism in their practice, and contemplate the role of intuition, rituals, relationship to nature, and the transformative power of creative expression. The pairing started through curated e-exchange during which we have, over five weeks and five shamanic themes, got to know each other virtually (and philosophically). In Belgrade, we were supposed to meet face-to-face for the first time but capitalism disrupted our plans. As a way of resistance and a sort of catharsis, we changed our initial plan and courageously embarked on an experiment which is also an excavation of the foundations on which art builds and from which it tries to escape.

Read about the project here.

See Facebook event.

Maja Radešić-Zard (Pula, Hrvatska) finished Academy of Fine Arts in Rijeka, Croatia specialising in graphic art and graphic painting. Apart form multiple solo and group exhibitions, locally and abroad, since 2003 she has been collaborating on various theatre and film projects as costimographer and set designer. She is a member of HDLU Istra (Croatian Association of Fine Artists) since 2009. 


Gordana Žikić (Belgrade, Serbia) finished a PhD at the Academy of Fine Arts on the topic of art and shamanism. She is a member of ULUS (Serbian Association of Fine artists) since 2008. Her work was shown at numerous solo and group exhibitions in Serbia and abroad. In 2019 she is taking part in a group exhibition of contemporary female Serbian artist in Pennsylvania, US curated by Rachel Klipa.