Lamija Halilagić
-b. 1991 in Novi Pazar. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, specializing in Painting, where she also completed her master’s studies. Her practice, deeply rooted in the principles of painting, has expanded over the past few years to include collage, video, sound, and installation. Her work emerges from the deconstruction of symbolic language and meaning, and consequently, from deconstruction in a narrower sense—where elements such as a forgotten artist’s catalogue transform into an artist’s book and, as such, are returned to the artistic space. Through this process of recycling, Lamija’s Green Book was created, emphasizing crucial issues such as ownership, inclusivity, and censorship. In 2018, the Collegium Artisticum Gallery awarded her the Grand Prix for the best young artist in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She has exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions, and her works have been published in several European art publications. In 2024, at the eighth Pop Art Festival in Sarajevo, she received the Anur Hadžiomerspahić Award from the Pogon Association. She currently lives and works in Belgrade.
Although I have occasionally experimented with various media, driven by the need to find my authentic artistic expression, my artistic practice has, for years, been centered on painting as my primary medium. However, in recent years, my curiosity has unlocked new realms of artistic engagement, where the exploration of material has taken center stage. My work with collage, for instance, has influenced my perception of both painting and the painting process itself—one medium has provided material for another, and vice versa.
While working on the Three Chairs for Holes and Waste painting series, I realized that I was accumulating an enormous amount of disposable material during the painting process, which led me to reflect on the nature of the process itself, and, by extension, the value of the final product.
How is it that a painting in a gallery setting can hold the same integrity as something labeled as “trash” in a plastic bag?
This way of repositioning objects became an intriguing concept for me. As a result, in addition to paintings, a whole new series emerged under the title WorkWaste.1234
I see this work as an exposure of the artistic process to the public. At first glance, it may seem tedious. But that doesn’t matter, because by exhibiting these works, I choose to bring the discarded and consumed back into the gallery space for discussion. In this way, waste enters the realm of metaphor and gains a universal quality. WASTE JOINS THE DISCOURSE! It becomes engaging and conceptually opens new fields of action and inquiry within contemporary art.
What drives me to continue deriving my work from this perspective is the fact that, today, so much is consumed and disposable.
This is how the Green Book came into being. The idea is to take an existing publication—preferably one already connected to the art scene—and transform it into a unique, singular artist’s book signed by one author. On one hand, the book is returned to its rightful place, while on the other, it offers an element of intimacy—something that is often missing in the relationship between artwork and viewer. In this way, passive participation is interrupted, and the audience is granted closer proximity to the artistic object.
The first Green Book was created in 2017 and is titled Handbook of Visual Experience (HOVE). It was conceived as a book in the form of a visual diary. This is where my interest in the phenomenon of intimacy began—I became fascinated by how perceived reality, in different contexts, shapes our understanding of intimacy and, consequently, memory. Each subsequent book became a type of diary, as in the process of making these collages—(I call them collages because that’s how the surface is treated)—I source content from the most personal materials possible. It is a “waste catch” of images, photographs, and small fragments of my past—remnants of memory.5678
Nevertheless, the original content of the publication largely dictates the direction of my intervention. For example, the book I’m Here, Once Said the Artist (2018), which centers around text, was created through a play on censorship—a critical catalog of Sigmar Polke’s works became the material for my personal manifesto in a Dadaist manner.9 101112On the other hand, the book Lectures on Nothing and More (2020) takes war as its central theme, exploring its impact on people and their environment.13
The visual interventions I make in these publications are largely borrowed from my painting practice, except that collage allows for greater freedom and tolerates more mistakes. The goal is not to erase every trace, but to let the content re-enter a dialogue. Thus, in agreement with the intervention, I reshape its original purpose. This kind of work can be touched, felt for its texture, smelled, or simply held in one’s hands. Through deconstruction, I transform meanings—reducing, erasing, censoring, or emphasizing certain images and visual concepts.14
I perceive my work as a game of revealing the ordinary and everyday, while at the same time concealing and packaging ideas into puzzles—ones that remain hidden and imperceptible at first glance.
The text was written in collaboration with Adna Muslija (2024).
1Lamija Halilagić, Workwaste, mixed media, 2019.
2Lamija Halilagić, Workwaste, mixed media, 2019.
3Lamija Halilagić, Workwaste, mixed media, 2019.
4Lamija Halilagić, Workwaste, mixed media, 2019.
5Lamija Halilagić, Handbook Of Visual Experience, 30 pages, 22 x 20cm, 2016
6Lamija Halilagić, Handbook Of Visual Experience, 30 pages, 22 x 20cm, 2016
7Lamija Halilagić, Handbook Of Visual Experience, 30 pages, 22 x 20cm, 2016
8Lamija Halilagić, Handbook Of Visual Experience, 30 pages, 22 x 20cm, 2016
9Lamija Halilagić, I'm Here Once Said The Artist, 16 pages, 16,5 x 22cm, 2018
10Lamija Halilagić, I'm Here Once Said The Artist, 16 pages, 16,5 x 22cm
11Lamija Halilagić, I'm Here Once Said The Artist, 16 pages, 16,5 x 22cm
12Lamija Halilagić, I'm Here Once Said The Artist, 16 pages, 16,5 x 22cm
13Lamija Halilagić, Lectures on Nothing and More, 54 pages, 15,5 x 15,5cm, 2020
14Lamija Halilagić, REST, 42 pages, 16,5 x 23,5cm, 2022.
-r. 1991. godine u Novom Pazaru. Diplomirala je na Akademiji Likovnih Umjetnosti na odsjeku za slikarstvo u Sarajevu, kao i na master studijama na istoimenoj akademiji. Njena praksa, duboko zasnovana na principima slikarstva, proširila se u posljednjih nekoliko godina na kolaž, video, zvuk i instalaciju. Dolazi od dekonstrukcije simboličkog jezika i značenja, a time i dekonstrukcije u užem smislu; gdje se element kao što je katalog zaboravljenog umjetnika pretvara u umjetničku knjigu i kao takav vraća u umjetnički prostor. Kroz ovaj proces svojevrsne reciklaže nastaje Lamijina zelena knjiga koja naglašava važnost pitanja kao što su vlasništvo, inkluzivnost i cenzura. Galerija Collegium Artisticum dodijelila joj je 2018. godine Grand Prix za najboljeg mladog umjetnika u Bosni i Hercegovini. Izlagala je na brojnim grupnim izložbama i samostalno, a njeni radovi objavljeni su u nekoliko evropskih umetničkih publikacija. 2024. godine, na osmom Pop Art Festivalu u Sarajevu, dobija prvu nagradu Udruženja Pogon nazvanu po Anuru Hadžiomerspahicu. Trenutno živi i radi u Beogradu.
Iako sam povremeno flertovala sa različitim medijima, vođena potrebom da pronađem svoj autentični umjetnički izraz, moja umjetnička praksa se godinama temeljila na slikarstvu kao primarnom mediju. U posljednjih nekoliko godina radoznalost je otključala nove sfere umjetničkog djelovanja u kojima je istraživanje materijala postavljeno u prvi plan. Tako je rad u mediju kolaža uticao na promišljanje slike i procesa slikanja. Dakle, iz jednog medija došao je materijal za drugi i obrnuto.
Dok sam radila na seriji slika Tri stolice za rupe i otpad, shvatila sam da u slikarskom procesu nakupljam ogromnu količinu materijala za “baciti”, što me je navelo na razmišljanje o samoj prirodi tog procesa, a samim tim i o vrijednosti finalnog proizvoda.
Kako to da slika u galerijskoj postavci može imati isti integritet kao i djelo označeno kao “smeće” u plastičnoj vrećici?
Ideja takvog pozicioniranja stvari počela mi je biti zanimljiva, pa pored slika, nastaje čitava nova serija radova pod nazivom WorkWaste. 1234
Ovaj rad vidim kao razotkrivanje umjetničkog procesa publici. Isprva djeluje i dosadno. Ali nema veze, jer prikazivanjem ovih radova biram da odbačeno i potroš(e)no vratim nazad u galerijski prostor i izložim na diskusiju. Na taj način odbačeno ulazi u sferu metaforičkog i poprima kvalitet univerzalnog. OTPAD SE PRIDRUŽUJE DISKURSU! Postaje zabavno i konceptualno otvara nova polja djelovanja i preispitivanja unutar savremene umjetnosti.
Ono što me tjera da nastavim crpiti vlastiti rad iz ovakog stava jeste činjenica da je danas toliko toga potroš(e)no.
Tako nastaje i Zelena knjiga. Uzeti postojeću publikaciju, po mogućnosti onu koja je već ima neke veze sa “umjetničkom scenom” i transformirati je u jedinu i jedinstvenu umjetničku knjigu koju potpisuje jedan autor. S jedne strane, ideja je da se knjiga vrati na mjesto koje joj pripada, a s druge strane, ono što nam knjiga nudi kao predmet je trenutak intimimizacije; a to je ono što često nedostaje u odnosu između umjetničkog djela i posmatrača. Na taj način se prekida pasivno participiranje i publici se omogućava dodatna blizina umjetničkom objektu.
Prva zelena knjiga nastala je 2017. godine. Zove se Handbook Of Visual Experience, a stvorena je s idejom o knjizi u formi vizualnog dnevnika. Tako se počinjem baviti fenomenom intimnosti – zanimam se za način putem kojeg percipirana stvarnost, u različitim kontekstima, oblikuje razumijevanje prije svega intimnosti, a onda i sjećanja.
Svaka naredna knjiga postaje nekom vrstom dnevnika, jer u pravljenju ovih kolaža (ja ih zovem kolaži jer je površina tako tretirana) sadržaj crpim iz materijala koji je najličniji mogući. To je “otpadni ulov” meni bitnih slika, fotografija, malih djelića jedne prošlosti, fragmenata sjećanja. 5678
Ipak, originalni, postojeći sadržaj publikacije u velikoj mjeri diktira moj pravac djelovanja. Tako na primjer knjiga “Im here, once said the artist”, iz 2018. godine, a koja iza središnji element ima tekst, nastaje u svojevrsnoj igru cenzure – kritičarski katalog umjetnika Sigmara Polke postaje materijal za moj lični manifest u dadaističkom maniru. 9101112 S druge strane, knjiga “Lectures on nothing and more”, iz 2020. godine, za glavni motiv ima rat, te propituje utjecaje koje rat ima na ljude i njihovu okolinu. 13
Likovne intervencije koje u ovakvim publikacijama radim, u velikoj su mjeri posuđene iz moje slikarske prakse, s tim da kolaž pruža veću slobodu djelovanja i trpi više pogreški. Cilj nije izbrisati svaki trag, već omogućiti sadržaju da ponovo uđe u dijalog. Stoga, u dogovoru sa intervencijom preoblikujem njenu prvobitnu namjenu. Ovakav rad možete dodirnuti, osjetiti njegovu teksturu, pomirisati ga, ili jednostavno, držati ga u rukama. Kroz dekonstrukciju transformiram značenja, reduciram, brišem, cenzuriram ili podvlačim i naglašavam određene slike ili vizualne koncepte. 14
Svoj rad doživljavam kao igru otkrivanja svakodnevnog i običnog, te skrivanja i zapakivanja ideja u zagonetke, koje prvom pogledu ostaju skrivene i neprimjetne.
Tekst je napisan u kolaboraciji s Adnom Muslija (2024).
1Lamija Halilagić, Workwaste, kombinovana tehnika, 2019.
2Lamija Halilagić, Workwaste, kombinovana tehnika, 2019.
3Lamija Halilagić, Workwaste, kombinovana tehnika, 2019.
4Lamija Halilagić, Workwaste, kombinovana tehnika, 2019.
5Lamija Halilagić, Handbook Of Visual Experience, 30 strana, 22 x 20cm, 2016
6Lamija Halilagić, Handbook Of Visual Experience, 30 strana, 22 x 20cm, 2016
7Lamija Halilagić, Handbook Of Visual Experience, 30 strana, 22 x 20cm, 2016
8Lamija Halilagić, Handbook Of Visual Experience, 30 strana, 22 x 20cm, 2016
9Lamija Halilagić, I'm Here Once Said The Artist, 16 strana, 16,5 x 22cm, 2018
10Lamija Halilagić, I'm Here Once Said The Artist, 16 strana, 16,5 x 22cm, 2018
11Lamija Halilagić, I'm Here Once Said The Artist, 16 strana, 16,5 x 22cm, 2018
12Lamija Halilagić, I'm Here Once Said The Artist, 16 strana, 16,5 x 22cm, 2018
13Lamija Halilagić, Lectures on Nothing and More, 54 strane, 15,5 x 15,5cm, 2020
14Lamija Halilagić, REST, 42 strana, 16,5 x 23,5cm, 2022.
