Ana Adamović
Ana Adamović is a visual artist primarily working in the fields of photography and video. Her practice and research is mostly centered on the constructions of historical narratives, identities and individual and collective memories. She graduated at the department for the World Literature at the Belgrade University and studied photography at the Art Institute of Boston. She holds a PhD in Practice from the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. She is founder of Belgrade based Kiosk platform for Contemporary Art.
Lives and works in Belgrade.
My professional starting point is photography, a medium that I hardly work in anymore, but a medium that determines my entire practice, which in the broadest sense deals with “the construction of historical narratives and individual and collective memories”. I think and see like a photographer, although, as time progresses, the image I see is a moving rather than a still one. And just as documentary photographs are often constructions consciously created to emphasize reality, I have always been interested in how we understand, construct, imagine, and communicate the variousness of “truths” and histories with which and through which we live, that is, “truths” and histories that we could live if we ever decide to try to live differently. But there are several more aspects that are inherent to the photographic medium, which makes it crucial for my practice: photography implies a craft, a certain skill, and it implies responsibility. That “craft” forces you to be as precise and as accurate as possible, to think about what you do and how you do it, and to do it very economically – above all – in terms of time. On the other hand, responsibility is one of the things you are reminded of time and again while studying photography – you are reminded of the fact that sometimes, though to a lesser extent today, as a photographer you are the only one who can bear witness to something and that commands serious responsibility. Also, when it comes to documentary photography, there was never any need to raise the question of its politics, it was always implied. It can be highly aestheticized, but it is never decorative. It is rooted in reality, the photographer is outside and among people, away from the safety of the studio and that is something that keeps defining one’s practice, even if you no longer practice photography to such an extent. There is one more thing that I think about more often lately when I consider my practice, which has also been importantly shaped by Kiosk, a collective led by Milica Pekić and me 1 namely the fact that photography is, in great extent, a collaborative endeavour, because you’re always working together with those on the other side of the camera. Over the years, my practice has become more complex and demanding, it moved from one medium to another, much more conditioned by rather long research processes, but neither the issues I deal with nor the way I approach them have really changed too much. In that sense, it is fairly procedural and the works, even when that doesn’t necessarily seem obvious, arise one from another, whether they build on a topic that the previous one dealt with or a problem that appeared in the previous one and intrigued me enough to start solving it in the next project. What I want to say is that, for example, “Canzona” (2010) 2 dealt with memory, as much as the work that preceded it – “Madeleine” (2004) 3, which uses photography and video as memory triggers. However, for the first time in “Canzona”, a human voice was used as a memory trigger, that is, a letter – song, sent by a son to his mother, from the front. That led to the collaboration with the choir “Kolibri” on the project “My Country is the Most Beautiful of All” (2013) 4 which dealt with Yugoslavia, after which I went to the archives and started researching photographic albums in the Museum of Yugoslavia and began to ponder on the idea of a choir a lot more. Although it may not be obvious, even “The Corridor” (2019) 5, the only work that I consider deeply personal, since it was born from the experience of loss – the experience of sitting in an oncology clinic and waiting for my mother’s daily chemotherapy to be over, would not have been possible had it not been preceded by a series of works that included sound and revealed what the human voice – the sound contributes to a moving image. And just as “The Corridor” is in many ways conditioned by the works that preceded it, it was only after it was finished that I could see much more clearly how all the other works, though in a different way, are personal, since they are really all initiated by the total disintegration of the coherent narrative that began with the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia, by the loss of any reliable support, and by the understanding that every narrative and every history that is offered to us is a total construct, in its character even if not in scope, not too different from what we find in art. And it is precisely for its capacity to create those different and non-hegemonic narratives as affective spaces for imagining, learning, trying out different possibilities, relationships and worlds, that we need art even if we live in a world, where it is only logical to ask oneself every single day what really makes sense any more.
1 See: https://kioskngo.net.
2 Ana Adamovic,
Canzona, single channel video, 3’17”,
2010, installation view, October Salon,
Belgrade, 2010; https://anaadamovic.com/canzona-2010/.
3 Ana Adamovic,
Madeleine,
single channel video, 3’ 42“, 2004, video still.
https://anaadamovic.com/madeleine-2004/
4 Ana Adamovic,
My Country is the Most Beautiful of All,
three-channel video installation, 2’ 51”, installation view,
Salon of the MOCA Belgrade, 2014;
https://anaadamovic.com/my-country-is-the-most-
beautiful-of-all-2011-2013/.
5 Ana Adamovic, Corridor, Two-channel video and eight-channel audio installation,
7h 47’, installation view, Podroom Gallery, Belgrade, 2019;
and 2019; https://anaadamovic.com/the-corridor-2019/.
Ana Adamović je vizuelna umetnica koja prvenstveno radi u oblasti fotografije i videa. Njena praksa i istraživanje uglavnom su usredsređeni na konstrukcije istorijskih narativa, identiteta i individualnih i kolektivnih sećanja. Diplomirala je na odseku za svetsku književnost Beogradskog univerziteta i studirala fotografiju na Umetničkom institutu u Bostonu. Doktorirala je na Akademiji lepih umetnosti u Beču. Osnivač je beogradske Kiosk platforme za savremenu umetnost. Živi i radi u Beogradu.
Moje profesionalno polazište je fotografija, medij koji gotovo više da i ne praktikujem, ali koji, zajedno sa bavljenjem, najjednostavnije rečeno „konstrukcijom istorijskih narativa i ličnim i kolektivnim sećanjima“, određuje u najvećoj meri čitavu moju praksu. Ja mislim i gledam kao fotograf iako godinama sve više vidim pokretnu a ne statičnu sliku, pa zato u tom drugačijem medijumu i “dokumentujem.” I kao što su i dokumentarne fotografije često konstrukcije svesno kreirane da bi se stvari bolje videle, tako i mene oduvek interesuje kako razumevamo, konstruišemo, zamišljamo i komuniciramo tu mnogoznačnost „istina“ i istorija sa kojima i koje živimo, odnosno „istina“ i istorija koje bismo mogli da živimo ako bismo se jednom odlučili da probamo da živimo drugačije. Ali to što je moje polazište fotografija čini mi se ima i još nekoliko bitnih određenja koje su ovom mediju inherentna: fotografija podrazumeva zanat, određenu veštinu i podrazumeva odgovornost. Taj „zanat“ vas tera da budete što precizniji, što tačniji, da razmišljate šta i kako radite i da to činite veoma ekonomično pre svega u smislu vremena. S druge strane, odgovornost je jedna od stvari na koju vas tako često podsećaju dok učite fotografiju – podsećaju vas na činjenicu, iako je danas to sve manje slučaj da ste kao fotograf ponekad vi jedini koji može o nečemu da svedoči i da to podrazumeva ozbiljnu odgovornost. Takođe, kada je reč o dokumentarnoj fotografiji, nikada nije bilo potrebe postavljati pitanje njene političnosti, ona se uvek podrazumevala. Ona može biti visoko estetizovana, ali nikada nije dekorativna. Ona je ukorenjena u stvarnost, fotograf je napolju i među ljudima, van sigurnosti studija i to je ono što određuje praksu, pa čak i kada više ne koristite taj sam medij toliko kao što je moj slučaj. I, ono o čemu sve češće razmišljam kada razmišljam o svojoj praksi koja je u dobroj meri u poslednje dve decenije oblikovana i radom kroz Kiosk, kolektiv koji, uz mnoštvo saradnika, činimo Milica Pekić i ja 1 , jeste činjenica da je fotografija u dobroj meri kolaborativna stvar, jer uvek radite zajedno sa onima koji su sa druge strane kamere. Moja praksa je godinama postajala složenija i zahtevnija, prešla iz jednog medija u drugi, mnogo više uslovljena prilično dugačkim procesima istraživanja, ali se ni pitanja kojima se bavim ni način na koji joj prilazim zapravo nisu previše menjali. U tom smislu, ona je u dobroj meri procesualna i radovi, čak i kada to nužno ne deluje očigledno, proizilaze jedni iz drugih, bilo da se nadovezuju na temu kojom se prethodni bavio ili na problem koji se pojavio u prethodnom i zaintrigirao me dovoljno da njega počnem da rešavam u sledećem radu. Ono što želim da kažem je da se, recimo, „Kancona“ (2010) 2 bavila sećanjem, podjednako kao i rad koji joj je prethodio, koji koristi fotografiju i video kao okidače sećanja – „Madlene“ (2004) 3, ali je u „Kanconi“ po prvi put upotrebljena ljudski glas, odnosno pesma – pismo koje sin upućuje majci sa fronta, kao okidač sećanja. Onda je to vodilo radu sa horom „Kolibri“ na radu „Najlepša je zemlja moja“ (2011-2013) 4 koji se bavio Jugoslavijom, a nakon koga sam otišla u arhive i započela rad na istraživanju fotografskih albuma u Muzeju Jugoslavije i počela mnogo više da razmišljam o samoj ideji hora. Iako to možda nije očigledno, ni „Hodnik“ (2019), jedini rad koji smatram duboko ličnim budući da je nastao iz iskustva gubitka – iskustva sedenja na onkološkoj klinici i čekanja da se završe mamine dnevne hemo-terapije, ne bi bio moguć da mu nije prethodio niz radova koji su radili sa zvukom i sa tim šta ljudski glas, šta zvuk radi u pokretnoj slici. I kao što je „Hodnik“ 5 na mnoge načine uslovljen radovima koji su mu prethodili, tako sam tek kada je on bio postavljen mogla mnogo jasnije da vidim koliko su i svi ostali radovi, iako na drugačiji način, lični budući da su odista svi inicirani totalnim raspadom koherentnog narativa koji je započeo nasiljem i raspadom Jugoslavije, gubitkom bilo kakvog sigurnog oslonca i razumevanjem da je svaki narativ i svaka istorija koja nam se nudi totalni konstrukt, po svom karakteru iako ne po dometu, ne previše različit od onoga koji nalazimo u umetnosti. I upravo je kreiranje tih drugačijih i nehegomonih narativa kao afektivnog prostora zamišljanja, saznavanja, isprobavanja drugačijih mogućnosti, odnosa i svetova ono zašto nam je i dalje, čak i u ovakvom svetu gde je logično svaki dan se zapitati šta više uopšte ima smisla raditi, neophodna umetnost.
1
Pogledaj https://kioskngo.net.
2
Ana Adamovic,
Canzona, single channel video, 3’17”,
2010, installation view, October Salon,
Belgrade, 2010;
and https://anaadamovic.com/canzona-2010/.
3
Ana Adamovic, Madeleine,
single channel video, 3’ 42“, 2004, video still; https://anaadamovic.com/madeleine-2004/.
4
Ana Adamovic,
My Country is the Most Beautiful of All,
three-channel video installation, 2’ 51”, installation view,
Salon of the MOCA Belgrade, 2014; https://anaadamovic.com/my-country-is-the-most-
beautiful-of-all-2011-2013/.
5
Ana Adamovic, Corridor,
Two-channel video and eight-channel audio installation,
7h 47’, installation view, Podroom Gallery, Belgrade, 2019;
and 2019; https://anaadamovic.com/the-corridor-2019/
