Bojana Knežević
– a media artist active in the field of performance, video, audio-visual installation, sound and radio art and art education. She completed her graduate and master’s studies in New Visual Art Media at the Academy of Art in Novi Sad, and her Ph.D. at the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Art in Belgrade. She is the co-author of the art and media project and podcast Femkanje. She is currently employed as an associate at the Academy of Art, University of Novi Sad.
Portrait of Bojana S. Knežević, 2019, photo: Eva Puella
In my artistic practice, I aim to open a space for marginalised and hidden voices through various artistic forms, such as participative performances, media interventions, multi-channel installations, radio and audio projects.
Before I became a professional artist, I worked as a TV journalist where I realised that it is almost impossible to avoid censorship and discrimination, which are a consequence of the power relations within a wider social system. I decided to use this journalistic skill to show the public the undervalued knowledge and experience of precarious workers in the independent artistic and activist scene. Using mediation as one of my most important strategies, I try to encourage collective activity, as the driving force of practices that strive for social change.
Working with socially engaged art I soon understood the value and the potential of the invisible space of sound, as an embodiment of resistance, a sonic imaginarium which allows new forms of bonding, directness, but also noise. In 2013 in Belgrade I started a radio podcast, the art and media project Femkanje together with the artist Katarina Petrović1. As an act of resistance to the media darkness in Serbia, Femkanje became a zone of free dialogue which promotes independent female and LGBTQ authors, primarily from the countries of former Yugoslavia, uniting the voices of over 150 interviewees in an online audio database. Using a microphone as the ultimate support for freedom of speech and expression, we produce sound installations and media interventions and lecture-performances23.
The need to research specific social phenomena leads me to combine the documentary approach and various media experiments. Spaces of the invisible open up the possibility of creating virtual artistic identities, such as the Sweet Conceptual Artist / Süße Konzeptkünstlerin / Slatka Konceptualna Umetnica who acts from the precarious position of an artist in the initial phase of her career, posing questions of desire, belonging, positioning and survival within the system of art. She enters this system as a guerilla, that is a museum exhibition of the conceptual and avant-guard scene in the form of the artistic advertisement Sweet Conceptual Artist looking for a job, surrounded by works of artists who have been recognised by the system, while her position remains precarious4.
Direct, immediate or even mediated confessions become a part of my multimedia installations, building hybrid forms and narratives that open up questions of association, empathy, trust, (de)stigmatisation and the performativity of everyday individual and group experiences, and finally mental health and the future of the planet. My family tree can be traced back to the 17th century, but only through the male ancestors. In the project A Queen of Montenegro I aim to tear down the patrilinear order and reconstruct the traditional oral history, putting into focus the personal histories of my female ancestors5.
The Reveries of Commons6, is a project that follows out of long-term research into the traces of feminism in Catholic sisterhoods, and results in its own kind of audio and visual compositions-installations. (Multi)facing anxiety, was produced in collaboration with neuroscientists and artists, and it includes people-interviewees battling anxiety as well as the audience, the emotional response of which to the individual stories was measured using a GSR device7.
The idea of an ecologically responsible and sustainable art practice includes recycling in the widest possible sense, and also establishing a balance between theory and practice, applied science and humanities. Through a semi-fictitious identity, Boa Beres, I return to my own voice, which connects the subject and the world in a very complex way. Working at the intersection of language, text, singing voice and magical practices, I discover different methods and choreographies in creating meaning and finding answers to ecological problems8.
Every new step I take in my art projects is driven by the aim to deconstruct patriarchal patterns, having faith in the collective experience of change and transformation, and finding different scenarios in which these ideas can be communicated to the public, which often through interaction becomes an accomplice or an integral part of the artwork.
Text is prepared in collaboration with Dejan Vasić (2022).
1Image: Femkanje “Logo“, 2015, courtesy of the artist.2Image: Femkanje Spaces of Commons, installation in the Podroom Gallery, CCB, Belgrade, 2021, photo: Đorđe Petković, courtesy of the artist.
3Image: Femkanje Open Mic, installation, MFRU - 24th International Festival of Computer Art, UGM Studio, Maribor, Slovenia, 2018, photo: Katarina Petrović, courtesy of the artist.
4Image: Bojana S. Knežević, Sweet Conceptual Artist looking for support, Street Gallery Belgrade, 2018, photo: Ivana Tomanović Brezovac, courtesy of the artist.
5Image: Bojana S. Knežević, A Queen of Montenegro - Gusle Miniatures, performance at the Center for Cultural Decontamination, 2021, photo: Srđan Veljović, courtesy of the artist.
6Image: Bojana S. Knežević, The Reveries of Commons, the view of the exhibition at the Städtische Galerie im Leeren Beutel, Regensburg, 2018, photo: Stefan Effenhauser, courtesy of the artist.
7Image: Bojana S. Knežević, (Multi)facing anxiety, Mikro Gallery, Center for the Promotion of Science, Belgrade, 2019, photo: David Stanley, courtesy of the artist.
8Image: Bojana S. Knežević, Boa Beres - Singing Libraries, performance in De bouwput, Amsterdam, 2022, photo: Shira Wolfe, courtesy of the artist.
– medijska umetnica aktivna u domenu performansa, videa, audio-vizuelne instalacije, zvučne i radijske umetnosti, i umetničke edukacije. Osnovne i master studije završila je na studijskoj grupi Novi likovni mediji, na Akademiji umetnosti u Novom Sadu, a doktorirala je na Interdisciplinarnim studijama Univerziteta umetnosti u Beogradu. Ko-autorka je umetničko-medijskog projekta i podkasta Femkanje. Trenutno radi kao stručna saradnica na Akademiji umetnosti Univerziteta u Novom Sadu.
Portret Bojane S. Knežević, 2019, foto: Eva Puella
U svojoj umetničkoj praksi nastojim da otvorim prostor u kojem će se čuti marginalizovani i skriveni glasovi, posredstvom različitih umetničkih formi, kao što su participativni performansi, medijske intervencije, višekanalne prostorne instalacije, radijski i zvučni projekti.
Pre nego što sam počela da se profesionalno bavim umetnošću, radeći kao TV novinarka, uvidela sam da je gotovo nemoguće izbeći cenzuru i diskriminaciju, koje su posledica odnosa moći unutar šireg društvenog sistema. Odlučila sam da ovu veštinu iskoristim kako bih iznela u javnost potcenjeno znanje i iskustvo prekarnih radnika i radnica na nezavisnoj umetničkoj i aktivističkoj sceni. Koristeći medijaciju kao jednu od mojih najvažnijih strategija, trudim se da podstaknem kolektivnu aktivnost, kao pokretačku snagu praksi koje teže društvenim promenama.
Baveći se društveno angažovanom umetnošću ubrzo uviđam vrednost i potencijal nevidljivog prostora zvuka, kao otelovljenja otpora, soničkog imaginarijuma koji dopušta nove forme udruživanja, neposrednosti, ali i buke. Zajedno sa umetnicom Katarinom Petrović, 2013. godine u Beogradu pokrećem radio emisiju/podkast, umetnički i medijski projekat Femkanje1. Kao čin otpora medijskom mraku u Srbiji, Femkanje postaje zona slobodnog dijaloga koja promoviše nezavisne ženske i LGBTQ autore/ke pre svega iz zemalja bivše Jugoslavije, okupivši glasove preko 150 intervjuisanih aktera i akterki u zvučnoj onlajn databazi. Koristeći mikrofon kao ultimativnu podršku slobodi govora i izražavanja, realizujemo brojne višekanalne zvučne instalacije, medijske intervencije i predavanja-performanse23.
Potreba za istraživanjem specifičnih društvenih fenomena, navodi me da kombinujem dokumentaristički pristup i različite medijske eksperimente. Prostori nevidljivog otvaraju mogućnost kreiranja virtuelnih umetničkih identiteta, stoga Slatka Konceptualna Umetnica / Sweet Conceptual Artist / Süße Konzeptkünstlerin nastupa iz prekarne pozicije umetnice u povoju, postavljajući pitanja želje, pripadanja, pozicioniranja i opstanka unutar sistema umetnosti. Ona u ovaj sistem ulazi gerilski, na muzejskoj izložbi konceptualne i avangardne scene, u formi umetničkog oglasa Slatka Konceptualna Umetnica traži posao, okružena delima umetnica/ka koje je sistem prepoznao, dok njena pozicija i dalje ostaje prekarna4.
Direktne, neposredne ili pak posredovane ispovesti postaju sastavni deo mojih multimedijalnih instalacija gradeći hibridne forme i narative, koje otvaraju pitanja udruživanja, empatije, poverenja, (de)stigmatizacije i performativnosti svakodnevnog individualnog i grupnog iskustva, i konačno mentalnog zdravlja i budućnosti planete. Moje porodično stablo može se pratiti od 17. veka, ali samo preko muških članova. U projektu A Queen of Montenegro težim da srušim patrilinearni poredak i rekonstruišem tradicionalno usmeno predanje, postavljajući u prvi plan lične istorije ženskih predaka5.
Sanjarenja o zajedništvu6, projekat koji prati višegodišnje istraživanje o tragovima feminizma u katoličkim sestrinstvima, rezultira svojevrsnim zvučnim i vizuelnim kompozicijama-instalacijama. Sva lica anksioznosti / (Multi)facing anxiety, realizovan u kolaboraciji sa neuronaučnicima/ama i umetnicima/ama, uključuje kako osobe-ispitanike/ce koji se bore sa anksioznošću, tako i publiku, kojoj je putem GSR aparata meren emotivni odgovor na pojedinačne priče7.
Ideja ekološki odgovorne i održive umetnosti, uključuje reciklažu u najširem mogućem smislu, ali i uspostavljanje balansa između teorije i prakse, primenjene nauke i humanističkih disciplina. Kroz polu-fiktivni identitet, Boa Beres, vraćam se sopstvenom glasu, posredstvom kojeg se povezuju subjekt i svet na vrlo kompleksan način. Radom na intersekciji jezika, teksta, pevajućeg glasa i magijskih praksi, otkrivam različite metode i koreografije u kreaciji značenja i pronalaženju odgovora na ekološke probleme8.
Svaki novi korak koji preduzimam u svojim umetničkim projektima, vođen je težnjom za dekonstrukcijom patrijarhalnih obrazaca, verom u kolektivno iskustvo promene i transformacije, te iznalaženje različitih scenarija u kojima ove ideje komuniciraju sa publikom, koja često kroz interakciju postaje saučesnikom ili integralnim delom umetničkog rada.
Tekst je napisan u saradnji sa Dejanom Vasićem (2022.).
1Ilustracija: Femkanje „Logo“, 2015, ljubaznošću umetnice.
