Jelena Jureša
– (1974) is a visual artist and filmmaker, born and raised in Yugoslavia who lives and works in Belgium. In her films, photography and video installations, Jureša explores issues of cultural identity, gender, the politics of remembering and forgetting and collective violence. She graduated from the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad and holds a Ph.D. from Ghent University, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy and KASK & Conservatorium in Ghent.
Portrait of the artist: Bea Borgers for Kunstenfestivaldesarts, 2022.
The truth is, I work within the realm of reality though I am not interested in a mere documentary. I work with people and deal with real events, memories, history and their critical interpretation, all the while thinking about how to talk about crime and trauma and how to introduce them into the artistic space. I read somewhere that an anecdote can indicate the presence of a blind spot and therefore I treat this scrap of historical margin as a guide. It seems to me that this inherent ambiguity – that the anecdote refracts within itself has become, over time, the essence of my creative process.
Doing art was almost not a choice but my centre of everything. When I look back, it is clear to me that, through the creative process, I persistently searched for a meaningful voice, examining the space beneath the surface of the known. Samuel Beckett writes that he does not want to reproduce reality but to discover what lurks behind language itself by boring “one hole after another”1. One can almost communicate what at first seems unfathomable, if you penetrate reality by zooming into the details and intimacy of your wound. An attempt to heal in advance will be unsuccessful if that is the primary task but the creative and investigative processes give things meaning.
I get the impression that time passes linearly for many, but that my generation lives a parallel reality, the one locked in the loop of the 1990s and the consequences left by the wars. Through the prism of that experience, both my observation of history and the experience of the present are refracted. The 1990s also brought an identity crisis, the memory of Yugoslavia in the newly created states was savagely revised, trivialising the Yugoslav anti-fascist past, its uniqueness and complexity. During the breakup of Yugoslavia, the roles of poets and murderers suddenly overlapped, making our basic concepts of understanding the world painfully wobbly. I grew up in Yugoslavia and after its collapse I continued to live in Serbia, where I witnessed the change of values through historical revisions and the rise of patriarchy, religion, right-wing beliefs, nationalisms, which, with the denial of crimes, as an official state policy, gave birth to twisted offshoots of neoliberal capitalism. That is an ongoing process throughout the entire Yugoslav territory but it is most difficult to bear when you live where you are expected to belong until you realise that, like many others before you, you cannot belong there.
One of the main issues that preoccupy me in relation to crime is the life that continues to exist even after the Neighbour has been taken away. Equally, complicity, as well as the stretching of the line between the perpetrator of the crime and the silent majority, are increasingly in my focus. After I moved to Belgium, I started to focus on and analyse the mechanisms of the politics of memory in a wider European context, which expanded my research and led to the conceptual beginning of APHASIA2345. This feature-length film essay traces the genesis of collective crimes, linking them to the creation of nation – states and national identities. In three chapters, APHASIA reveals threads of positions of power, racism, injustice and violence from Belgian colonialism, through Austrian antisemitism to atrocities in Bosnia during the Yugoslav wars. My intention was not necessarily to connect the events in a documentary fashion but to make a kind of documentary gesture through the tapestry of relationships; the rhythmic sheet of this cognitive failure that rests on the denial of the crime6. And there is also the question of complicity, the question of positioning oneself within this structure— not only my involvement as an artist dealing with this topic— but also the complicity of media, film and photography; their complicity in historical crimes, which evolved from the mechanical tools for recording reality into an agent of tracking and coding7.
During the research for the work Mira, Study for a Portrait89, I faced my own ghosts and my memory of Yugoslavia and the question of whether the Yugoslav experience was actually lived or was it a construction1011. Is it possible to live a life outside of pre-set identity determinants and the burden of past sufferings, is trauma transmitted to future generations, was it possible to establish a country freed from war traumas and the wider geopolitical context, and what does it mean to be a woman throughout whose existence this reality is refracted?12 Initially, we can reflect upon a biography of a woman and a country and the chronicle of an era13. However, this is an illusion, because the geography of time in the work is very specific. Although photography and video frames refer to places to which the viewer returns again and again while following the video installation, their meaning is supplemented with new events (and histories). That fragility of the moment and the vulnerability of a place whose innocence cannot survive, led me to create a framework through which I can question my own sense of loss. A look back into the Yugoslav experience and the consequences of the war can also be read in the multimedia work STILL1516. The Sarajevo Children’s Choir—present exclusively through a sound installation—was created during the war in the then shelled city under siege. The photograph showing an empty room where the choir rehearses represents the present moment, as it is, in a building whose meaning creates a series of multi-level connections – with the repertoire of songs performed by the choir among others. Both of these elements collide with the moving image of the post-Dayton landscape, with the very questions of where is it that the war ends and what its consequences are and whether events can truly be understood through a linear reading of time, putting the past, present and future into brackets.
I am preoccupied with not belonging and personal destinies determined by the established social concepts or imposed political circumstances. On the one hand, it can be a question of female identity and the experience of being a woman, as in Notes on PMS17, where premenstrual syndrome is used as a framework through which the portrayed women express their fears and insecurities, which are patently socially conditioned. On the other hand, it can be an encounter with the Mozarts1819, polyglots from Southeast Europe who sell tickets for Mozart’s operas and concerts on the streets of Vienna, dressed in baroque costumes and whom the observer unequivocally recognizes as a signifier of Austrian identity. The destinies of the wandering Mozarts and their social non – belonging were largely determined by the fact that they were born in a region far enough from the privileged Europe20.
Five years after I filmed Mozart, I found myself in a situation where my previous life and professional experience became invisible. It’s not unusual, that’s just how it is, the life that happens in the territory that the Western gaze does not reach is not registered as (equally) important or else it is taxonomized into categories that do not tolerate complexity. Being a foreigner broadened my interest in the violence of everyday life and the pitfalls of silent racism and patriarchy. For someone interested in historical crime and its denial, moving to Belgium meant being at the source. This dual position, the experience of being the one who observes and the one who has become the object of observation—and the knowledge that every collective crime is conceived in language—I recast into a film poem called UBUNDU.212223.
The text was written in collaboration with Dejan Vasić (2022).
1Samuel Beckett, Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment, ed. Ruby Cohn (New York: Grove Press, 1984), p 172.2Image: Jelena Jureša, APHASIA, film still. Film installation, 80′, loop, English, Croatian spoken, 2019. Produced by ARGOS centre for audiovisual arts. Co-produced by Contour - kunstcentrum nona in the context of Contour Biennale 9, KASK School of Arts/HoGENT, Zagreb Youth Theatre (ZKM). With the support of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF). In the permanent collection of the Flemish Community Collection & Mu.ZEE.
3Image: Jelena Jureša, APHASIA, film still. Film installation, 80′, loop, English, Croatian spoken, 2019. Produced by ARGOS centre for audiovisual arts. Co-produced by Contour - kunstcentrum nona in the context of Contour Biennale 9, KASK School of Arts/HOGENT, Zagreb Youth Theatre (ZKM). With the support of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF). In the permanent collection of the Flemish Community Collection & Mu.ZEE.
4Image: Jelena Jureša, APHASIA, exhibition view. ARGOS centre for audiovisual arts, Brussels, (May - July, 2019). Photo: Dirk Pauwels.
5Image: Jelena Jureša, APHASIA, exhibition view. ARGOS centre for audiovisual arts, Brussels, (May - July, 2019). Photo: Dirk Pauwels.
6"Artist Talk with Jelena Jureša and Arlette-Louise Ndakoze", in Not Fully Human, Not Human at All, edited by Bettina Steinbrügge, Émilie Villez, Kunstverein in Hamburg, Archive books, 2020. Published as a part of the three - year project Not Fully Human, Not Human at All, curated by Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, initiated by Kadist and co-organized with Lumbardhi Foundation, Netwerk, Kunsthalle Lissabon, Hangar, and Contour Biennale 9. See: jelenajuresa.com/online-assembly/.
7“Who Has a Freedom to Forget”, a conversation with Galit Eilat, Erden Kosova and Jelena Jureša, in What Was Happening Here Was Never Normal Anyway, Versopolis/Review, 2020, see: academia.edu/44963195/Who_Has_the_Freedom_to_Forget.
8Image: Jelena Jureša, Mira, Study for a Portrait, video still. Video installation / two films 45’35” each, photographs, 2010-2015 & a book (published by Fotohof, Salzburg 2014). In the collection of MOCAB – Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade and MOCAV – Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina.
9Image: Jelena Jureša, Mira, Study for a Portrait, video still. Video installation / two films 45’35” each, photographs, 2010-2015 & a book (published by Fotohof, Salzburg 2014). In the collection of MOCAB – Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade and MOCAV – Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina.
10Branka Benčić, “Double Exposure – A Collision of Past and Present”, in Double Exposure – A Collision of Past and Present, Reading a Project by Jelena Jureša “Mira, Study for a Portrait'', Ed. Sandro Droschl, Graz: Künstlerhaus Halle für Kunst & Medien, 2015. Exh. Cat. at Kunstlerhaus Halle fur Kunst & Medien, Graz, Through 31. 01 – 05. 03. 2015. See: jelenajuresa.com/texts/text-branka-bencic/.
11Christel Stalpaert, “The Letter“ and Asa Mendelsohn, “Ocean, Marvel, Strange, Rebellious”, in Jelena Jureša, Mira Study for a Portrait – Reader, Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, 2016. See: cinemaniac-thinkfilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Jelena-Jure%C5%A1a-Mira-study-for-a-portrait.pdf
12In this multimedia travelogue, a map of the death camps is scattered across the territory of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
13On the one hand, Mira did exist, thanks to a critical moment in which her parents' lives intertwined, amidst historical and political turmoil. Her existence, therefore, was always fragile and under the burden of a suppressed family tragedy: her legacy as the daughter of the only surviving descendant of a family of Bosnian Jews, who died in the Holocaust, is horrifying. The deaths of the members of the Perera family form a kind of map, starting from the camp at Belgrade's Sajmište, through Đakovo, Loborgrad, to Jasenovac. On the other hand, we can also see Mira's life as a miracle, as a framework through which we can further look into that time interval which, surprisingly, coincided with the absence of war and the existence of a country.
14Image: Jelena Jureša, STILL, video still. Sound/video installation, 16’, loop, B&W photograph, text, 2013. In the collection of Contemporary Gallery Zrenjanin.
15Image: Jelena Jureša, STILL, video still. Sound/video installation, 16’, loop, B&W photograph, text, 2013. In the collection of Contemporary Gallery Zrenjanin.
16Image: Jelena Jureša, Notes on PMS, 2-channel, (video still). Video installation 54′, loop. English spoken 2012.
17Image: Jelena Jureša, Mozarts, video still. Video, colour/sound 19′, loop, 2008 - 2009.
18Image: Jelena Jureša, Mozarts, video still. Video, colour/sound 19′, loop, 2008 - 2009.
19Maja Ćirić, "Jelena Jureša – Transfer of (Inner and Outer) Borders”, in Jelena Jureša – Mozarts, exhibition catalogue, Gallery Zvono, Belgrade, 2010. See: jelenajuresa.com/texts/text-maja-ciric/.
20Image: Jelena Jureša, UBUNDU, film installation (16mm transferred to 2K video, 4:3, colour, sound), 17’, loop, English, Dutch spoken, 2019. Ubundu was commissioned by Contour Biennale 9 and Argos, centre for audiovisual arts. Supported by KASK School of Arts/HoGENT. In the collection of Mu.ZEE - Museum of Modern Art, Ostend.
21Image: Jelena Jureša, UBUNDU, film installation (16mm transferred to 2K video, 4:3, colour, sound), 17’, loop, English, Dutch spoken, 2019. Ubundu was commissioned by Contour Biennale 9 and Argos, centre for audiovisual arts. Supported by KASK School of Arts/HoGENT. In the collection of Mu.ZEE - Museum of Modern Art, Ostend.
22Critical review of APHASIA and UBUNDU exhibited at Biennale Contour, 2019. Marte Van Hassel, "Preserving to Forget", Recto Verso, October 18, 2019. See: rektoverso.be/artikel/preserving-to-forget.
– (1974) je vizuelna umetnica i filmska rediteljka. Rođena je i odrasla u Jugoslaviji, a danas živi i radi u Belgiji. U njenim filmovima, fotografijama i video instalacijama, Jureša istražuje pitanja kulturnog identiteta, roda, politike sećanja i zaboravljanja, kao i kolektivnog nasilja. Diplomirala je na Akademiji Umetnosti u Novom Sadu, a doktorirala je na Univerzitetu u Gentu, na Fakultetu Umetnosti i Filozofije i KASK Konzervatorijumu u Gentu.
Portret fotografija, foto: Bea Borgers za Kunstenfestivaldesarts, 2022.
Istina je da radim u granicama realnog, a da nisam zainteresovana za puki dokumentarizam. Radim sa ljudima i stvarnim događajima, sećanjima, istorijom i kritičkom interpretacijom iste, promišljajući kako govoriti o zločinu i traumi, i kako ih uvesti u umetnički prostor. Negde sam pročitala da anegdota može ukazati na prisustvo slepe tačke i stoga tretiram ovaj opiljak istorijske margine kao vodilju. Čini mi se da je ta inherentna višeznačnost koju anegdota prelama u sebi postala, tokom vremena, suština mog stvaralačkog procesa.
Bavljenje umetnošću gotovo da nije bio izbor, već moj centar svega. Kad pogledam unazad jasno mi je da sam kroz stvaralački proces uporno tragala za smislenim glasom, opipavala prostor ispod površine poznatog. Samuel Beket piše o tome da ne želi da reprodukuje stvarnost, već da otkrije šta vreba iza jezika samog, bušenjem „jedne rupe za drugom“1. Skoro da se može saopštiti ono što se u početku čini nedokučivim, ukoliko prodrete kroz stvarnost zumiranjem u detalje i intimnost svoje rane. Pokušaj zaceljivanja unapred je neuspešan ukoliko mu je to primarni zadatak, ali stvaralački i istraživački proces daju stvarima smisao.
Imam utisak da vreme prolazi linearno za mnoge, ali da moja generacija živi paralelnu realnost, onu zaključanu u loop-u devedesetih i posledicama koje su ratovi ostavili. Kroz prizmu tog iskustva prelamaju se kako moje posmatranje istorije, tako i doživljaj sadašnjosti. Devedesete su donele i krizu identiteta, sećanje na Jugoslaviju u novonastalim državama divljački se revidiralo, banalizujući jugoslovensku antifašističku prošlost, njenu posebnost i kompleksnost. Tokom raspada Jugoslavije, uloge pesnika i ubica iznenada preklopile su se, čineći naše osnovne koncepte razumevanja sveta bolno klimavim. Odrastala sam u Jugoslaviji i nakon njenog raspada nastavila da živim u Srbiji, gde sam svedočila smeni vrednosti kroz istorijske revizije i uzlet patrijarhata, religije, desničarskih uverenja, nacionalizama, koji s poricanjem zločina kao zvanične državne politike rađaju izvitoperene izdanke neoliberalnog kapitalizma. Taj proces je u toku na celom jugoslovenskom prostoru, ali najteže ga je podneti kada ga živite onde gde se očekuje da pripadate, dok ne shvatite da, kao i mnogi drugi pre vas, tu pripadati ne možete.
Jedno od osnovnih pitanja koje me zaokuplja u odnosu na zločin jeste život koji nastavlja da postoji i nakon što je Komšija odveden. Jednako tako, saučesništvo, kao i rastegljivost granice između počinioca zločina i tihe većine, sve su više u mom fokusu. Nakon što sam se preselila u Belgiju, počela sam da se fokusiram i analiziram mehanizme politika sećanja u širem evropskom kontekstu, što je proširilo moje istraživanje i dovelo do konceptualnog začetka AFAZIJE (Aphasia)2345 . Ovaj dugometražni filmski esej prikazuje genezu kolektivnih zločina, dovodeći ih u vezu sa stvaranjem nacionalnih država i nacionalnih identiteta. U tri poglavlja, Afazija otkriva nit pozicija moći, rasizma, nepravde i nasilja od belgijskog kolonijalizma, preko austrijskog antisemitizma do zverstava u Bosni tokom jugoslovenskih ratova. Namera mi nije bila da povezujem događaje nužno na dokumentaristički način, već da napravim neku vrstu dokumentarnog gesta kroz tapiseriju odnosa; ritmičku partituru ovog kognitivnog neuspeha koji počiva na negiranju zločina6. A tu je i pitanje saučesništva, pitanje pozicioniranja unutar ove strukture — ne samo moja impliciranost i kao umetnice koja se bavi ovom temom — već i saučesništva medija, filma i fotografije, njihovo saučesništvo u istorijskim zločinima, koji su od mehaničkog alata za beleženje stvarnosti, evoluirali u sredstvo za praćenje i kodiranje7.
Tokom istraživanja za rad Mira, skica za portret (Mira, Study for a Portrait)89 suočila sam se sa vlastitim duhovima i svojim sećanjem na Jugoslaviju, i pitanjem da li je jugoslovensko iskustvo doživljeno ili je konstrukcija1011. Da li je moguće živeti život van unapred zadatih identitetskih odrednica i tereta prošlih stradanja, da li se trauma prenosi na buduće generacije, da li je moguće bilo uspostaviti državu oslobođenu ratnih trauma i šireg geopolitičkog konteksta, te šta znači biti ženom kroz čije postojanje prelama se ovakva stvarnost12? U prvi mah možemo razmišljati o životopisu jedne žene, i jedne države, te beleženju epohe13. Ipak, ovo je privid, jer je geografija vremena u radu vrlo specifična. Iako fotografija i video-kadrovi upućuju na mesta u koja se posmatrač iznova vraća tokom praćenja video-instalacije, njihovo značenje biva dopunjeno novim dešavanjima (i istorijama). Ta krhkost trenutka, i ranjivost mesta čija nevinost ne može da opstane, naveli su me da stvorim okvir kroz koji mogu propitati i sopstveno osećanje nedostajanja. Pogled u jugoslovensko iskustvo i posledice rata, čita se i u multimedijalnom radu STILL1415. Sarajevski dječiji hor – prisutan isključivo putem zvučne instalacije – nastao je tokom rata, u tada granatiranom gradu pod opsadom. Fotografija koja prikazuje praznu prostoriju u kojoj hor održava probe predstavlja sadašnji trenutak, kakav jeste, u zgradi čije značenje stvara niz veza na više nivoa – sa repertoarom pesama koje izvodi hor, između ostalog. Oba ova elementa u koliziji su sa pokretnom slikom postdejtonskog pejzaža, sa samim pitanjima gde se rat završava i koje su njegove posledice, i da li se događaji mogu istinski razumeti kroz linearno čitanje vremena, stavljajući prošlost, sadašnjost i budućnost u zagrade.
Zaokupljena sam nepripadanjem i ličnim sudbinama koje određuju ustaljeni društveni koncepti ili nametnute političke okolnosti. S jedne strane, to može biti pitanje ženskog identiteta i iskustvo bivanja ženom, kao u Notes on PMS16, gde se predmenstrualni sindrom koristi kao okvir kroz koji portretisane žene iznose svoje strahove i nesigurnosti koje su uvek društveno uslovljene. S druge strane, to može biti susret sa Mocartima (Mozarts)1718, poliglotama iz Jugoistočne Evrope koji prodaju karte za Mocartove opere i koncerte na ulicama Beča, obučeni u barokne kostime, a koje posmatrač nedvosmisleno prepoznaje kao označitelja austrijskog identiteta. Sudbine lutajućih Mocarta i njihovog društvenog nepripadanja umnogome su determinisane činjenicom da su rođeni u regionu dovoljno dalekom od privilegovane Evrope19.
Pet godina nakon što sam snimila Mocarte, pronašla sam se u okolnostima u kojim je moje prethodno životno i profesionalno iskustvo postalo nevidljivo. To nije neobično, prosto je tako, život koji se dešava na teritoriji do koje zapadni pogled ne dopire ne beleži se kao (jednako)bitan ili se pak taksonomizira u kategorije koje ne trpe kompleksnost. Bivanje strancem proširilo je moj interes za nasilje svakodnevice, te zamke tihog rasizma i patrijarhata. Za nekog ko je zainteresovan za istorijski zločin i negiranje istog, preseljenje u Belgiju značilo je biti na izvoru. Ovu dvostruku poziciju, iskustvo bivanja onim koji gleda i onim koji je postao objekat pogleda – te saznanje da je svaki kolektivni zločin začet u jeziku – pretopila sam u filmsku poemu pod nazivom UBUNDU202122.
Tekst je napisan u saradnji sa Dejanom Vasićem (2022).
1Samjuel Beket. u Rubi Kon „Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment“, Grove Press, New York, 1984, str. 172.2Ilustracija: Jelena Jureša, Aphasia. Filmska instalacija, 80′, loop, engleski, hrvatski, 2019. Producent: ARGOS centre for audiovisual arts, Brisel. Koproducent: Contour – kunstcentrum nona u kontekstu Contour Bijenala 9, KASK School of Arts/HOGENT, Zagrebačko kazalište mladih (ZKM). Uz podršku Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF). U kolekciji: Flemish Community Collection & MU.ZEE.
7Who Has a Freedom to Forget, razgovor između Galit Ejlat, Erden Kosova i Jelene Jureša, u Nataša Petrešin Bašle “What Was Happening Here Was Never Normal Anyway”, Versopolis/Review, 2020. Link: academia.edu/44963195/Who_Has_the_Freedom_to_Forget.
8Ilustracija: Jelena Jureša, Mira, Study for a Portrait. Video instalacija / dva filma 45’35” svaki, fotografije, 2010-2015 knjiga (izdavač Fotohof, Salzburg 2014). U kolekciji MOCAB – Muzeja savremene umetnosti u Beogradu i MOCAV – Muzeja savremene umetnosti Vojvodine.
11Kristel Stalpert Pismo, u: Una Popović „Jelena Jureša, Mira, skica za portret“, Muzej savremene umetnosti Beograd, Beograd, 2016 i Asa Mendelson Okean, čudo, čudnovato, buntovno, u: Una Popović „Jelena Jureša, Mira, skica za portret“, Muzej savremene umetnosti Beograd. Link: cinemaniac-thinkfilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Jelena-Jure%C5%A1a-Mira-study-for-a-portrait.pdf.
12U ovom multimedijalnom putopisu, mapa logora smrti razastrta je preko teritorije Socijalističke Federativne Republike Jugoslavije.
13S jedne strane, Mira jeste postojala, zahvaljujući lomnom trenutku u kom su se prepleli životi njenih roditelja, a usred istorijskih i političkih previranja. Njeno postojanje, stoga, bilo je oduvek krhko, i pod bremenom potisnute porodične tragedije: njeno nasleđe kao kćerke jedinog preživelog potomka porodice bosanskih Jevreja, stradalih u Holokaustu, stravično je. Smrti članova porodice Perera tvore svojevrsnu mapu, počev od logora na beogradskom Sajmištu, preko Đakova, Loborgrada, do Jasenovca. S druge strane, Mirin život možemo sagledati i kao čudo, kao okvir kroz koji se možemo dalje zagledati u taj vremenski interval koji se, eto, začudno poklopio sa odsustvom rata i postojanjem jedne države.
14Ilustracija: Jelena Jureša, STILL. Video instalacija, 16’, loop, crno-bela fotografija, tekst, 2013. U kolekciji Savremene galerije Zrenjanin.
20Ilustracija: Jelena Jureša, Ubundu, filmska instalacija (16mm prebačeno u 2K video, 4:3, kolor, zvuk), 17’, loop, engleski, holandski, 2019. Ubundu je narudžba Contour Bijenala i Argos, centra za audiovizuelnu umetnost. Uz podršku KASK School of Arts / HoGent. U kolekciji MU.ZEE – Muzej savremene umetnosti, Ostende.
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