Borjana Mrđa
-b in Banja Luka in 1982, she completed her undergraduate and master’s studies in Painting at the Academy of Arts, University of Banja Luka, and earned her PhD in Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. She is an Associate Professor at the Academy of Arts, University of Banja Luka, where she teaches Painting and Drawing and also serves as the Vice Dean for Art and International Cooperation. She is the mentor and organizer of Interakcija, a regional artistic-curatorial project that promotes the work of young artists. Additionally, she is the founder and president of the Center for Visual Art. She has been exhibiting individually and collectively since 2008. Some of her notable solo exhibitions include The Mutable Body at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Republic of Srpska (2012) and Decorative Selves at Reflektor Gallery in Užice (2023) and the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Republic of Srpska (2022). Her recent group exhibitions include 3 Generations of Women Artists Perform, Threshold – Concert Hall, Perth (2017); Balkan Art, Robert Gordon University, Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen (2017); and Perceptions, Museum of Contemporary Art of the Republic of Srpska, Banja Luka (2019).
In my most recent series of works titled Decorative Selves, which includes painting, drawing1, video installations, and the creation of specific painting-objects, I examine the intricate relationships between matrilineage and identity, culture, mythological constructs, and globalist ideas. This is achieved through the juxtaposition of the material, formal, ethical, and metaphysical properties of fabric and clothing.2
Textiles are far more than practical fabrics used to cover the body; they are complex cultural objects deeply connected to the construction of identity on both personal and global levels.3 They serve as a means to understand the shifts in perception and formation of body image, with its coordinates rooted in mental, metaphysical, and ethical generators of existence. Fabric and clothing become spaces of continual appropriation and adaptation, circulation and exchange, and an expansive realm of archetypes. Clothing acts as a site of collective inscriptions, a point of encounter with other identities and external influences, and a space for ongoing self-affirmation and the preservation of internal integrity. Identity wears objects (clothing) as a kind of skin, periodically replaced as it grows and evolves. In this way, clothing becomes a kind of sediment left behind during the transformation of the collective body.
Through the reconstruction and deconstruction of clothing without the body—using both digital and traditional methods—and by creating hybrid surfaces through recycling and bleaching garments, I raise questions about the role of the authentic “body,” the subject, and the individual space in the creation of universal appearances and values.
The work Mnemonics of the Matri (video and audio installation, photo animation − 950 digitally modified photographs, 6 min. 7 sec., 2017−19) was the starting point for this exploration.4 It opened the way to a complex multimedia investigation that eventually coalesced into a unified series titled Decorative Selves. At the center of this work is a white cotton shirt, a family heirloom.5 It was worn by women across several generations on my mother’s side. This dress served as their everyday “civilizational skin,” inscribed with the history, intimate experiences, and events of the time in which they lived—both directly and indirectly. The shirt remains a silent witness, as many of the old customs have largely disappeared, oral traditions have been reduced to a few who still remember, and the role and position of women today have significantly changed.6
After unexpectedly becoming the custodian of this matrilineal legacy—both formally and materially embodied in the dress/shirt and, on a metaphysical level, representing a significant void or the absence of the bodies of all the women who wore it—the central question of my artistic work arose: the “void” or the dress without a body. The pulsating emptiness within the dress took on the unique form of each of its wearers’ bodies in the matrilineal chain and lived on them throughout their lives. This inspired the creation of the triptych Three States of the Singular (paintings, acrylic on canvas, 100 x 120 cm, 2019). In it, I depict a single dress in three different body forms.7 From a formal and material perspective, the dress is fabric and surface, but from a metaphysical standpoint, it carries the generative substance of micro-histories and inscribed meanings from each of its wearers.89
In the work Surfaces of Individuation (painting-objects created through garment recycling, white acrylic, 180 x 130 cm, 2018−19), I focus on the deconstruction of dresses.10 I interpret individuation as the process of narrowing collective consciousness into the individual—a phase that precedes the complete realization of individuality, marking the separation from universal consciousness.11 Clothing and dresses are viewed as potential forms of civilizational individuation, symbolizing the evolution or separation from the natural environment. Clothing is treated as a carrier of civilizational identity, functioning as an artificially created protective skin that shields and covers the natural skin, while imbuing the body with historical, social, and cultural determinants.
The method I use to create painting-objects and deconstruct clothing/dresses involves de-individuation, returning the shaped and tailored garment (belonging to a specific individual) to the collective or universal surface. I dismantle dresses, combine them with other deconstructed garments, stretch them onto frames, and unify them into two-dimensional surfaces. I further homogenize them through the process of bleaching, which can be interpreted as a state before all colors. Through this reverse process, I evoke the pre-individuation stage—before dressing and integration into a temporal framework and societal or urban construct.In the work The Future Dress (mixed digital techniques − photography, prints on paper and plastic film, 20 formats, 56 x 42 cm, 2017−19), textile material is transformed into a digital “sculpture,” inspired by ancient sculptures that have been “altered by subtraction”—their limbs or parts removed over time due to environmental and spatial conditions.12 A complete-body sculpture becomes drapery in the form of a torso. In this work, I apply the process of temporal and spatial, destructive-creative influences on ancient sculptures to depict the compression of time and space in a digital sense.13 However, this digital sculpture of drapery—a non-existent dress—does not belong to any specific time or place.14 It exists in the phase of individuation, in a stage of locating its coordinates of belonging. It occupies the “in-between” space, the gap between complete emptiness and a dress that belongs to a specific body.15
The text was written in consultancy with Adna Muslija (2024).
1Borjana Mrđa, Decorative selves, Ink on paper, 59x50cm, 2015-20.
2Borjana Mrđa, Decorative selves, Ink on paper, 59x50cm, 2015-20.
3Borjana Mrđa, Decorative selves, Ink on paper, 59x50cm, 2015-20.
4Borjana Mrđa, Mnemonics of the Matri, stop motion photo animation, 06’07’’, 2017-2019.
5Borjana Mrđa, Mnemonics of the Matri, stop motion photo animation, 06’07’’, 2017-2019.
6Borjana Mrđa, Mnemonics of the Matri, stop motion photo animation, 06’07’’, 2017-2019.
7Borjana Mrđa, Three States of the Singular, 145x100cm, acrylic on canvas, 2019.
8Borjana Mrđa, Three States of the Singular, 145x100cm, acrylic on canvas, 2019.
9Borjana Mrđa, Three States of the Singular, 145x100cm, acrylic on canvas, 2019.
10 Borjana Mrđa, Surfaces of Individuation, painting-objects, 180x130cm, 2018-2019.
11 Borjana Mrđa, Surfaces of Individuation, painting-objects, 180x130cm, 2018-2019.
12Borjana Mrđa, The Future Dress, 56x42cm, 2018.
13Borjana Mrđa, The Future Dress, 56x42cm, 2018.
14Borjana Mrđa, The Future Dress, 56x42cm, 2018.
15Borjana Mrđa, The Future Dress, 56x42cm, 2018.
-r. u Banjoj Luci 1982. godine. Osnovne studije i magisterij završila je na Odsjeku za slikarstvo na Akademiji umjetnosti Univerziteta u Banjoj Luci, a doktorske studije iz oblasti Slikarstva na Fakultetu likovnih umetnosti u Beogradu. Predmeti koje predaje u svojstvu vanrednog profesora na Akademiji umjetnosti Univerziteta u Banjoj Luci su Slikanje i Crtanje, gdje takođe radi u svojstvu Prodekana za umjetnost i međunarodnu saradnju. Mentor je i organizator regionalnog, umjetničko-kustoskog projekta Interakcija koji promoviše stvaralaštvo mladih umjetnika. Osnivač je i predsjednik Centra za vizuelnu umjetnost. Izlaže samostalno i kolektivno od 2008. godine. Priredila je više samostalnih izložbi, a odabrane samostalne izložbe su „Promjenljivo tijelo“ u Muzeju savremene umjetnosti RS (2012) i „Dekorativna sopstva“ u Galeriji Reflektor u Užicu (2023.) i Muzeju savremene umjetnosti RS (2022). Recentne kolektivne izložbe su: 3 Generations of Women Artists Perform, Threshold – Concert Hall, Perth (2017), Balkan art, Robert Gordon University, Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen (2017); Percepcije, Muzej savremene umjetnosti RS, Banja Luka (2019).
Posljednjom serijom radova pod nazivom Dekorativna sopstva u mediju slike, crteža1, video instalacije, te izradom specifičnih slika-objekata, preispitujem kompleksne odnose matri-linija i identiteta, kulture, mitoloških konstrukcija i globalističkih ideja, kroz sučeljavanje materijalnih, formalnih, etičkih i metafizičkih svojstava tkanine/odjeće.2
Tekstil nije tek praktična tkanina usko povezana sa prekrivanjem tijela, već je slojevit predmet kulture u dubokoj vezi sa konstruisanjem identiteta u ličnom i globalnom prostoru, kao i način za shvatanje promjena koje se dešavaju u poimanju i formiranju tjelesne slike čije su koordinate pohranjene u mentalnim, metafizičkim i etičkim generatorima egzistencije.3 Tkanina/odjeća jeste mjesto neprekidnih prisvajanja i prilagođavanja, cirkulacija i razmjena, kao i nepregledni prostor arhetipskog. Odjeća je mjesto kolektivnih inskripcija, ona je mjesto susreta sa drugim identitetima i spoljnjim uticajima, kao i mjesto neprekidnog samopotvrđivanja te utvrđivanja internog integriteta. Identitet nosi predmete (odjeću) kao svojevrsnu kožu, koju, kako se on nadrasta i transformiše, pokriva periodično novom odjećom. Odjeća tako ostaje svojevrsni sediment prilikom transformacije kolektivnog tijela.
Pokušajem rekonstrukcije/dekonstrukcije odjeće bez tijela, digitalnim i klasičnim metodama, te tvorenjem hibridnih površina reciklažom i izbjeljivanjem odjeće, postavljam pitanje uloge autentičnog „tijela“, subjekta i prostora individualnog pri tvorenju univerzalnih pojavnosti i vrijednosti. Rad Mnemonika matri (video i audio instalacija, foto-animacija − 950 digitalno modifikovanih fotografija, 6 min. 7 sek., 2017−19) je onaj sa kojim je sve počelo i koji je otvorio kompleksnu cjelinu višemedijskih radova ka daljem istraživanju da bi se vremenom formirala koherentna cjelina pod nazivom Dekorativna sopstva.4 Bijela pamučna košulja predmet je porodičnog nasljeđa.5 Nosile su je žene kroz nekoliko generacija po liniji moje majke. Haljina je bila njihova svakodnevna civilizacijska koža u koju je posredno i neposredno upisana istorija, intimni doživljaji i događaji vremena u kome su živjele. Košulja ostaje nijemi svjedok, budući da su se nekadašnji običaji većinom ugasili, usmeno prenošenje svedeno je na vrlo mali broj onih koji ih pamte, a uloga i pozicija žene danas se bitno promijenila.6
Nakon što sam neočekivano postala odgovorni čuvar ovog matri nasljeđa, koje je u formalnom i materijalnom smislu haljina/košulja, a u metafizičkom sadržajna i značajna praznina ili odsustvo tijela svih žena koje su nosile tu haljinu, kao temeljni problem samog umjetničkog rada nametnulo se upravo pitanje „praznine” ili haljine bez tijela. Pulsirajuća praznina, prisutna unutar haljine, na svakom pojedinačnom tijelu u matri lancu poprimila je specifičan oblik tijela svoje trenutne vlasnice i boravila na njemu tokom njenog života. Tako nastaje i triptih pod nazivom Tri stanja jednine (slike, akril na platnu,100 x 120 cm / 2019). Slikam jednu haljinu u tri oblika tijela.7 Haljina posmatrana sa tačke formalnog i materijalnog jeste tekstil i površina, međutim, iz metafizičke pozicije, haljina u sebi nosi osobine generativne supstance mikro istorija i upisanih značenja svake od njenih vlasnica.89
U radu pod nazivom Površine individuacije (slike-objekti nastale procesom reciklaže odjeće, bijeli akril,180×130 cm, 2018−19) bavim se dekonstrukcijom haljina.10 Individuaciju tumačim kao proces ograničavanja kolektivne svijesti na individuu, proces koji prethodi realizaciji individue u potpunosti − faza izdvajanja iz univerzalne svijesti.11 Sama odjeća/haljina posmatrana je kao moguća forma civilizacijske individuacije izrastanja/odvajanja od prirodnog okruženja. Odjeća je uzeta kao nosilac civilizacijskog identiteta u smislu vještački proizvedene zaštitne kože koja štiti i pokriva prirodnu kožu, a tijelu daje istorijske, društvene i kulturološke determinante.
Metoda koju koristim prilikom građenja slika/objekata i razobličavanja odjeće/haljina je deindividuacija jer je vraćanje uobličenog, skrojenog, odjevnog predmeta (koji pripada određenoj osobi) kolektivnom, odnosno univerzalnoj površini. Razobličavam haljine i povezujem ih sa ostalom razobličenom odjećom, natežem ih na ram i povezujem u dvodimenzionalnu površinu. Dodatno ih unificiram procesom izbjeljivanja, koje može biti posmatrano kao stanje prije svih boja. Tako obrnutom metodom evociram formu procesa prije konačne individuacije, oblačenja i uklapanja u vremenski okvir i društvenu/gradsku konstrukciju.
U radu Buduća haljina (kombinovane digitalne tehnike − fotografija, štampa na papiru i plastičnoj foliji, 20 formata, 56 x 42 cm, 2017−19) tekstilni materijal je transformisan u digitalnu “skulpturu” po uzoru na antičke skulpture koje su “dorađene oduzimanjem” tjelesnih udova/ dijelova skulpture uticajem vremena i atmosfersko-prostornih okolnosti.12 Skulptura cjelovitog tijela postaje draperija u formi torza. Postupak vremensko-prostornih, destruktivno-kreativnih uticaja na antičke skulpture, u ovom radu primjenjujem kao postupak svođenja na prostor i vrijeme u digitalnom smislu.13 Međutim, ova digitalna skulptura draperije, nepostojeće haljine, ne pripada određenom vremenu, niti pripada nekom mjestu u prostoru.14 Ona se još nije desila, u fazi je individuacije, fazi lociranja koordinata pripadanja. Ona je u prostoru „između”, u procjepu između potpune praznine i haljine koja pripada određenom tijelu.15
Tekst je napisan u konsultaciji sa Adnom Muslija (2024).
1Borjana Mrđa, Dekorativna sopstva, tuš na papiru, 59x50cm, 2015-20.
2Borjana Mrđa, Dekorativna sopstva, tuš na papiru, 59x50cm, 2015-20.
3Borjana Mrđa, Dekorativna sopstva, tuš na papiru, 59x50cm, 2015-20.
4Borjana Mrđa, Mnemonika matri, stop motion foto animacija, 06’07’’, 2017-2019.
5Borjana Mrđa, Mnemonika matri, stop motion foto animacija, 06’07’’, 2017-2019.
6Borjana Mrđa, Mnemonika matri, stop motion foto animacija, 06’07’’, 2017-2019.
7Borjana Mrđa, Tri stanja jednine, 145x100cm, akril na platnu, 2019.
8Borjana Mrđa, Tri stanja jednine, 145x100cm, akril na platnu, 2019.
9Borjana Mrđa, Tri stanja jednine, 145x100cm, akril na platnu, 2019.
10 Borjana Mrđa, Površine individuacije, slike-objekti, 180x130cm, 2018-2019.
11 Borjana Mrđa, Površine individuacije, slike-objekti, 180x130cm, 2018-2019.
12Borjana Mrđa, Buduća Haljina, 56x42cm, 2018.
13Borjana Mrđa, Buduća Haljina, 56x42cm, 2018.
14Borjana Mrđa, Buduća Haljina, 56x42cm, 2018.
15Borjana Mrđa, Buduća Haljina, 56x42cm, 2018.
