Lala Raščić
-b. 1977. in Sarajevo. She has studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb and Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Raščić has exhibited internationally since 1998 in solo and group exhibitions. Amongst others, Raščić had attended artist-in-residence programs at the Museums Quartier, Q21, Vienna; Platform Garanti, Istanbul; and Cite des Arts, Paris. Raščić is the recipient of several awards including the Future of Europe Award and the Henkel Art Award shortlist. She is a member of artists’ associations in Croatia and the Sarajevo feminist organization CRVENA. From 2011 to 2018 she was an active member of the New Orleans artist-run Good Children Gallery.
My practice is a sincere expression of form chasing the content.
I noted this thought recently, feeling the need to evaluate my work to date. I wish to make use of this platform to map the processes and connections that I currently consider crucial for the understanding of my practice—connections that reach back to my early works, anchoring my interests in complex systems of mediated knowledge production, subversion of civilizational tropes and the exploration of their transformative potential set against the backdrop of contemporary ontologies and unstable realities.
The guiding principle of my research and interests appears to spiral outward exponentially. It forms cycles, linking projects across decades. I observe the Fibonacci-like geometry of my practice through recurring aesthetics, themes, and techniques, engaged in a continuous exchange between the formal and the conceptual, in a dialectic relationship between drawing and research—to be understood in the broadest possible sense.
My early video performances—The Invisibles (2005)12, Sorry, Wrong Number (2006)34, Everything is Connected (2007)567, Individual Utopias (2008)8910—directly referenced radio drama and live sound theater drawing on the aesthetics inherent to those media. These performances for the camera evolved from rudimentary studio situations to highly polished, refined, compositions pursued to the point of formal and conceptual exhaustion—or at least, that’s how it felt to me.
In these works, my audio-visual persona dominated, commanding attention on-screen. However, the exhibition configurations of these projects included objects, drawings, documentation, and additional media. These appeared as a sort of evidence, proving work on the content—content that was truly emancipated only once the form had caught up.I finally accepted the iterative processes of drawing, researching, and drawing again as the generative engines of my work—the means by which I discover content. I mention drawing here in the broadest sense—as the segment of my practice that I experience most viscerally. I see it as a continuous, ephemeral activity, an instrument, a mode of thinking through movement, an immediate form of notation, a handwriting, but also a tool for re-mediation.
On the other hand, I associate the act of research with memory and coincidence—concepts that, unlike drawing, do not depend on will or refinement. I understand research as a process that, in its multidimensional expansion, activates the latent and censors the superfluous, revealing the unexpected while confirming the intuited.
The project The Damned Dam (2010)1112 serves as a nexus within my practice. This work emerged at the intersection of my ongoing engagement with enactment of the narrative in the form of video performance, my exploration of the myriad forms of live delivery (political speech, poetry reading, epic singing, storytelling), and the realization of my concurrent investments in aesthetic formalization alongside the imperative of accountability in engaging with social critique.
During this time, in the particular constellation of my interests in oral traditions and geo-political contexts of the Balkans, while researching the The Damned Dam project, I encountered Milman Parry and Albert B. Lord’s work on the Homeric Question. I was drawn to their study of epic narratives from the Sandžak region, which led Lord to hypothesize that Homer was not an author but an exceptional performer—a performer par excellence—and that the historical epic is an open form, always subject to contemporary reinterpretation.13
This was a revelation that made me consider ancient and contemporary storytelling from the same vantage point, exposing how archetypal imagery is preserved solely through the authority of narration and control over historical narratives. My assumed role as a storyteller, which I had insisted upon in previous works, was affirmed through this research. Yet, it was also frustrating—as I found in literature and academic discourse the repeated claim that there were no female epic storytellers, no female guslarke, no female instrumentalists. Similar mansplaining awaited ethnomusicologist Iva Nenić while proposing her doctoral thesis. She finally managed to debunk this ingrained preconception with her erudite 250-page dissertation.14Her book Gusle Players and female instrumentalists in Serbia: Identification by sound was on top of my reading list when in 2020, via the mythical Medusa, I had arrived at the regional folk practice of tepsijanje (singing to the accompaniment of a manually rotated metal pan). This marked a new phase of my ongoing research, which I entitled Exoneration of Tradition.
The epic is heroic, cowboyish, chivalric, patriarchal, and identitarian. As such, it mirrors myth, existing outside of time and presenting itself as unquestionable truth. A brief critical glance at Greek mythology, which follows similar formulae as the epics told in Sandžak, reveals countless instances of overlooked, demonized or abused female figures. Scholar Jasenka Kodrnja calls for the possibility of re-mythologization15—the rehabilitation or exoneration of deposed goddesses and condemned women. I see in this potential for intellectual gymnastics—an exercise in open-ended myth formation, strengthening of the mental muscles of resistance needed to dislodge the status quo. By working with historical and contemporary systems of material culture and intangible heritage, I engage in the reconstruction of emancipatory narratives and the re-mythologization of stale knowledge.
After numerous exhibitions and iterations, I settled The Damned Dam into a minimalist performance format—a 40-minute canto performed by heart, accompanied by saz16 player and vocalist Jusuf Brkić. By forcing form to catch up with content, I exonerated the conventions of the epic and the saz, stripping them of their outdated historical context and reinstating them as living myth, embedded within contemporary cultural production. At the same time, I embedded my own position as a storyteller into an oral tradition to which I insist I belong.
In contrast to my previous projects, which focused on the spoken-word, narrative authority, and performance, my more recent works—POČIMALJA (2022–2024)171819, Poppaea’s Pans (2021)202122, and GORGO (2019–2022)232425 —are performative, yet silent. These three projects overlap in their development and material execution—all of them crafted in beaten copper at the hand of a female kazandžija (coppersmith)26. Each work critically engages with womens historical positions—whether in rural society, myth, or the imperial Roman court. After exhausting language in cycles that aimed to re-mythologize women’s narratives from antiquity, including video works that were built around saturated theatrical monologues of Electra27 and Arachne28, my GORGO remains silent, rattling her armor instead of speaking.
Although Poppaea’s Pans shares a soundtrack with GORGO—a three-part harmony of opera fragments from The Coronation of Poppaea—this kinetic installation marked the beginning of my exploration into regional female folk singing practices, realized through POČIMALJA. The research underpinning Poppaea’s Pans and POČIMALJA manifests through drawing-based exploration of the formal element of a disk in rotation. Multiplied through objects, shadows, reflections, and its role of a sound-producing instrument, the pan (tepsija) becomes an abstraction —a formal-visual-vocal signal. Through this transformation, the spinning pan reveals its original ritual function. The disciplined spoken voice is replaced by deconstructed song, temporarily suspending the verbal/articulate, introducing instead the vocal/silent.
Within the Fibonacci-like geometry of my artistic practice, this dialectic between drawing and research is now joined by the tension between verbal/articulate and vocal/silent.
The text was written in consultancy with Adna Muslija (2024).
1Lala Raščić, The Invisibles, video still, 2005. Courtesy of the artist
2Lala Raščić, Invisible General, print, 50 x 70 cm, 2005. Courtesy of the artist
3Lala Raščić, Sorry, Wrong Number, installation view, 2006. Courtesy of the artist
4Lala Raščić, Sorry, Wrong Number, drawing 50 x 75 cm, 2006. Courtesy of the artist
5Lala Raščić, Everything is Connected, installation view, 2007. Courtesy of the artist
6Lala Raščić, Everything is Connected, script detail, 2007. Courtesy of the artist
7Lala Raščić, Everything is Connected, installation view, 2007. Courtesy of the artist
8Lala Raščić, Individual utopias, installation view, BOP Gallery, 2008. Courtesy of the artist
9Lala Raščić, Individual utopias, video still, 2008. Courtesy of the artist
10Due to these video works, I will be regarded as an actress and video maker of remarkable scope and skill—a myth that I have yet to live up to and that masks my true talents, aptly analyzed in detail in the text by Jelena Vesić and Vladimir Jelić-Vlidi.
See: Jelena Vesić and Vladimir Jelić-Vlidi, "The Story as a Disguised Truth, on the Speaker's Passion", in Lala’s Reader, P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute, Ljubljana, 2014, p. 19.
https://lalarascic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/lalas_reader__web_7mb.pdf, accessed on 22.11.2024.
11Lala Raščić, Damned Dam, video still, 2010. Courtesy of the artist
12Lala Raščić, Damned Dam, installation view, Zagreb, 2010. Courtesy of the artist
13Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales, Harvard University Press, Boston, 2000.
14Iva Nenić, Guslarke i sviračice, Clio, Novi Sad, 2019.
15Ibid, p.67.
16The saz is an ancient musical instrument from the tambur family, originating from Iran. It appeared in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 15th century with the arrival of the Ottomans.
https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saz
17Lala Raščić, POČIMALJA: She who starts a song, installation view at National Museum of BiH, Sarajevo, 2024. photo by: Ajla Salkić, Courtesy of the artist
18Lala Raščić, POČIMALJA: She who starts a song, installation view at National Museum of BiH, Sarajevo, 2024. photo by: Ajla Salkić, Courtesy of the artist
19Lala Raščić, POČIMALJA: She who starts a song, installation view at National Museum of BiH, Sarajevo, 2024. photo by: Ajla Salkić, Courtesy of the artist
20Lala Raščić, Poppaea’s Pans, installation view, GORGO in the background @ Röda Sten Konsthall, 2021. photo by Hendrik Zeitler
21Lala Raščić, Poppaea’s Pans, installation view @ Röda Sten Konsthall, 2021. photo by: Hendrik Zeitler
22Lala Raščić, Poppaea’s Pans, installation view @ Röda Sten Konsthall, 2021. photo by: Hendrik Zeitler
23Lala Raščić, GORGO, video still, 2019. Courtesy of the artist
24Lala Raščić, GORGO, video still, 2019. Courtesy of the artist
25Lala Raščić, GORGO, video still, 2019. Courtesy of the artist
26In these works, I established a continuous collaboration with coppersmith Nermina Beba Alić, a rare woman who continues to craft traditional hammered copperware in an otherwise patrilineal trade.
27 I explored the character of Electra as a response to Aeschylus and Jean-Paul Sartre in the video The Eumenides (2014).
https://lalarascic.com/portfolio/the-eumenides-2014/
Lala Raščić, The Eumenides, installation view @ Galerija Waldinger, Osijek, photo by Tevž Logar
28 I explored the mythical figure of Arachne in the video installation EE-0 (2018), developed in collaboration with Andreja Dugandžić and Jelena Petrović.
https://lalarascic.com/portfolio/ee-0/
Lala Raščić, EE-0, single channel, 2018, video still
-r. 1977. u Sarajevu. Studirala je na Akademiji likovnih umjetnosti u Zagrebu i Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten u Amsterdamu. Od 1998. izlaže na međunarodnoj sceni kroz samostalne i grupne izložbe. Učestvovala je u rezidencijalnim programima u Museums Quartier, Q21, Beč; Platform Garanti, Istanbul; i Cité des Arts, Pariz. Dobitnica je nekoliko nagrada, uključujući Future of Europe Award i bila je finalistica Henkel Art Award-a. Članica je umjetničkih udruženja u Hrvatskoj i feminističke organizacije CRVENA u Sarajevu. Od 2011. do 2018. bila je aktivna članica njuorleanske umjetničke inicijative Good Children Gallery.
Moja praksa je iskrena tendencija forme da sustigne sadržaj.
Ovo sam zabilježila nedavno, osjetivši potrebu da evaluiram svoju dosadašnju produkciju. Iskoristit ću ovu platformu za mapiranje procesa i poveznica koje trenutno smatram bitnim za sagledavanije svoje prakse, a koje sežu do ranih radova, utemeljujući moje interese u propitivanju složenih sustava proizvodnje znanja, subverziji civilizacijskih općih mjesta i iznalaženju transformativnih potencija istih u kontekstu suvremenih ontologija i nestabilnih realnosti.
Krovno načelo koje usmjerava moja istraživanja i interese naslućujem kao spiralu eksponencijalnog širenja. Ona obrazuje cikluse i povezuje pojedine projekte udaljene dekadama. Fibonaccijevsku geometriju vlastite prakse promatram kroz teme, estetike i tehnike koje se pojavljuju u kontinuiranoj razmjeni formalnog i konceptualnog, u dijalektici koju uspostavljam između crtanja i istraživanja shvaćenih u najširem mogućem značenju.
Moji prvi video-performansi Nevidljivi (2005)12, Sorry, Wrong Number (2006)34, Sve je povezano (2007)567, Individualne utopije (2008)8910 direktno citiraju formu radio-drame, živog zvučnog teatra i estetiku koja isljeđuje iz tog medija. Izvedbe za kameru, od rudimentarne situacije u ateljeu do stilski dotjerane, zaglađujem do iscrpljenja forme i smisla. Ili sam ja to tako osjetila. Dok zaokupljam pažnju svojom AV pojavnošću, u izložbenim konfiguracijama upravo tih projekata se pojavljuju i objekti, crteži, dokumentacija i popratni medijski materijali. Oni su dokaz rada na sadržaju koji se emancipira tek kad ga forma sustigne. Procese crtanja, i istraživanja, pa opet crtanja najzad prihvaćam kao generativne pokretače svog rada u iznalaženju sadržaja.
Crtanje ovdje spominjem u najširem smislu, kao segment vlastite prakse kroz koji najviše proživljavam. Podrazumijevam ga kao stalnu, efemernu aktivnost i kao alat. Moje crtanje je razmišljanje kroz pokret, neposredno bilježenje, rukopis, ali i sredstvo re-medijacije. Istraživanje pak vezujem uz pojmove memorije i koincidencije, koji za razliku od crtanja ne ovise o volji i razradi. Shvaćam ga kao proces kroz koji, u njegovom višedimenzionalnom širenju, aktiviram latentno i cenzuriram suvišno, otkrivam nepredviđeno, ali i potvrđujem naslućeno.
Projekt Prokleta brana (2009-2013)1112 ovdje može služiti kao nexus. Nastaje na sjecištu mog kontinuiranog bavljenja izvedbom narativa u mediju video performansa, posezanja za različitim, i meni tada novim, formama javnog nastupa (politički govor, čitanje poezije, pjevanje epa, storytelling), te prepoznavanja paralelnih sklonosti ka estetskoj razradi i odgovornosti u bavljenju društvenom kritikom. U konstelaciji mog tadašnjeg interesa za usmene oblike izvođenja i geo-lokacije Balkana, tijekom rada na Prokletoj brani, susrećem se sa Milman Parry i Albert B. Lordovim traganjem za odgovorom na Homersko pitanje. Zastajem kod guslarskih narativa iz Sandžaka preko kojih je Lord utemeljilo hipotezu o Homeru ne kao autoru, već izvrsnom izvođaču – performeru par excellence – i o kazivanju povijesnog epa kao otvorenoj formi podložnoj osuvremenjivanju.13
Ovaj spoznajni presjek na istu ravan za mene postavlja drevnu i suvremenu moć pripovijedanja/govora, ukazujući na povijesno taloženje arhetipskih predodžbi održanih isključivo putem autoriteta kazivanja i kontrole historijskog narativa. Moja naslućena agencija kazivačice na kojoj insistiram u dotadašnjem radu, ovim istraživanjem biva potvrđena. Frustrirajuće, tijekom istraživanja za Prokletu branu, u literaturi i kroz akademske kanale nailazim perpetuirani stav: nema žena kazivačica epa, nema guslakri, nema sviračica. Upravo takav mansplaining dočekao je etnomuzikologinju Ivu Nenić dok je prijavljivala svoju doktorsku tezu u kojoj je nakon 250 stranica gusto ispisanog teksta uspjela da opiše suprotno.14 Njena knjiga Guslarke i sviračice je bila bitno štivo kad sam 2020. posredstvom mitskog lika Meduze stigla do regionalne folklorne prakse tepsijanja. Svoje kontinuirano istraživanje započeto 2009. tada nazivam Egzoneracija tradicije.
Ep je herojski, kaubojski, viteški, patrijarhalan i identitaran. Kao takav ima paralele sa mitom, uspostavljenim u neodređenom vremenu i neupitnim kao istina. Kratak kritički pogled na grčku mitologiju, koja se slaže po sličnim principima graničarskog epa, ukazat će na brojne motive o demoniziranim ili zlostavljanim ženskim likovima. Jasenka Kodrnja poziva na mogućnost remitologizacije15– rehabilitacije ili egzoneracije svrgnutih božica i optuženica. Taj potencijal shvaćam kao intelektualnu gimnastiku nad otvorenom formom mita na kojoj se vježba mišić otpora potreban za izmještanje statusa quo. Kroz rad sa suvremenim i povijesnim sistemima manifesne materijalne kulture i nematerijalne baštine, bavim se nadogradnjom emancipatornih narativa i remitologizacijom bajatog znanja.
Nakon brojnih izlagačkih iteracija, Prokleta brana se skrasila u jednostavnoj izvedbenoj formi gdje spjev u trajanju od 40 minuta naizust izvodim uz pratnju sazlije i pjevača Jusufa Brkića. Formu sam tako pritjerala sadržaju, egzonerirala epske kanone i saz16 iz konteksta prošlog i svršenog, te ih kao mit, kroz upisivanje u suvremenu kulturnu produkciju, otvorila. Istovremeno, svoju poziciju kazivačice umetnula sam u kontinuum dugog trajanja tradicije, kojoj smatram da pripadam.
Nasuprot tim prijašnjim projektima usmjerenim na izvedbu i agenciju u autoritetu govora,, stoje moji recentni, performativni, ali nijemi projekti POČIMALJA (2022-2024)171819, Poppaea’s Pans (2021)202122 i GORGO (2019-2022)232425. U simbiotskom nadopunjavaju i preklapanju po redoslijedu nastanka i materijalizaciji u kucanom bakru obrađenom rukama žene-kazandžijke26, sva tri projekta se kritički obraćaju položaju žene kroz povijest, kako na selu i mitu tako i na imperijalnom rimskom dvoru. U osjećaju da sam iscrpila riječi u radovima iz ciklusa posvećenim remitologizaciji ženskih narativa iz antike – videima koncipiranim kao tour de force izgovorenog, saturiranog teksta teatralnih monologa Elektre27 i Arahne28 – GORGO šuti i zvecka oklopom.
Iako dijeli soundtrack sa GORGO – u troglasju otpjevanih fragmenta opere Krunidbe Poppae – kinetička instalacija Poppaea’s Pans stoji na početku mog kontinuiranog bavljenja regionalnom, ženskom, folklornom praksom pjevanja uz tepsiju, tepsijanja, realiziranim kroz projekt POČIMALJA. Implicirano istraživanje na kojem gradim instalacije Poppea’s Pans i POČIMALJA se manifestira kroz crtačko promišljanje forme diska u vrtnji. Umnožena kroz objekte u prostoru, sjene i refleksije koje generira, i funkciju koju obavlja kao zvučni element, tepsija je apstrahirana do formalno-vizualno-vokalnog signala. Tako transformirana, neposredno komunicira svoju izvornu funkciju ritualnog. Na mjesto izgovorenog teksta se upisuje otpjevani glas, koji kao i ostale forme sadržane u ovom radu, biva izbijen iz konteksta i dematerijaliziran. Tu kao da privremeno dokidam verbalno/rječito i uvodim vokalno/nijemo. U Fibonaccijevskoj geometriji moje umjetničke prakse, dijalektičkom odnosu crtanja i istraživanja, pridružuje se i odnos verbalnog/rječitog i vokalnog/nijemog.
Tekst je napisan u konsultaciji s Adnom Muslija (2024).
1Lala Raščić, Nevidljivi, video still, 2005. Ljubaznošću umjetnice
2Lala Raščić, Nevidljivi general, print, 50 x 70 cm, 2005. Ljubaznošću umjetnice
3Lala Raščić, Sorry, Wrong Number, postavka, 2006. Ljubaznošću umjetnice
4Lala Raščić, Sorry, Wrong Number, crtež 50 x 75 cm, 2006. Ljubaznošću umjetnice
5Lala Raščić, Sve je povezano, postavka, 2007. Ljubaznošću umjetnice
6Lala Raščić, Sve je povezano, detalj, 2007. Ljubaznošću umjetnice
7Lala Raščić, Sve je povezano, postavka, 2007. Ljubaznošću umjetnice
8Lala Raščić, Individualne utopije, postavka, BOP Gallery, 2008. Ljubaznošću umjetnice
9Lala Raščić, Individualne utopije, video still, 2008. Ljubaznošću umjetnice
10Iz ovih video radova iznjedrit će se mit o meni kao glumici zavidnih dosega i vještoj video umjetnici – predodžbe koje nisam dosegla i koje još uvijek maskiraju moje stvarne talente, dijelom precizno obrađene u tekstu Jelene Vesić i Vladimir Jelić-Vlidija
Pogledati: Jelena Vesić i Vladimir Jelić-Vlidi, "Priča kao prerušena istina, o strasti govornice" u Lalina čitanka, P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. institute, Ljubljana, 2014. str. 19
https://lalarascic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/lalas_reader__web_7mb.pdf, pristupljeno 22.11.2024.
11Lala Raščić, Prokleta brana, video still, 2010. Ljubaznošću umjetnice
12Lala Raščić, Prokleta brana, postavka, Zagreb, 2010. Ljubaznošću umjetnice
13Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales, Harvard University Press, Boston, 2000.
14Iva Nenić, Guslarke i sviračice, Clio, Novi Sad, 2019.
15Ibid, p.67.
16Saz je drevni glazbeni instrument iz grupe tambura porijeklom iz Irana. Na teritoriju Bosne i Hercegovine pojavljuje se u 15. stoljeću dolaskom Osmanlija.
https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saz
17Lala Raščić, Počimalja: She who starts a song, postavka u Zemaljskom muzeju BiH, Sarajevo, 2024. foto: Ajla Salkić, Ljubaznošću umjetnice
18Lala Raščić, Počimalja: She who starts a song, postavka u Zemaljskom muzeju BiH, Sarajevo, 2024. foto: Ajla Salkić, Ljubaznošću umjetnice
19Lala Raščić, Počimalja: She who starts a song, postavka u Zemaljskom muzeju BiH, Sarajevo, 2024. foto: Ajla Salkić, Ljubaznošću umjetnice
20Lala Raščić, Poppaea’s Pans, postavka, GORGO u pozadini @ Röda Sten Konsthall, 2021. foto: Hendrik Zeitler
21Lala Raščić, Poppaea’s Pans, postavka, GORGO u pozadini @ Röda Sten Konsthall, 2021. foto: Hendrik Zeitler
22Lala Raščić, Poppaea’s Pans, postavka, GORGO u pozadini @ Röda Sten Konsthall, 2021. foto: Hendrik Zeitler
23Lala Raščić, GORGO, video still, 2019. Ljubaznošću umjetnice
24Lala Raščić, GORGO, video still, 2019. Ljubaznošću umjetnice
25Lala Raščić, GORGO, video still, 2019. Ljubaznošću umjetnice
26 U ovim radovima sam ostvarila kontinuiranu suradnju sa kazandžijkom Nerminom Bebom Alić, rijetkom ženom koja nastavlja da se bavi izradom tradicionalnog posuđa od kucanog bakra u inače patrilinernom zanatu.
27 Lik Elektre kao reakciju na Eshila i Jean Paul Sartrea sam obradila u videu Eumenide iz 2014.
https://lalarascic.com/portfolio/the-eumenides-2014/
Lala Raščić, The Eumenides, postavka @ Galerija Waldinger, Osijek, foto: Tevž Logar
28Mitski lik Arahne sam obradila u video instalaciji EE-0 iz 2018. koju sam razvila u kolaboraciji s Andrejom Dugandžić i Jelenom Petrović.
https://lalarascic.com/portfolio/ee-0/
Lala Raščić, EE-0, jednokanalni video, 2018. video still
