Maja Zećo
– b. 1987 in Sarajevo. Maja has been based in Scotland since 2015. She is an interdisciplinary artist working across performance art, sound and moving image. In her research-oriented work, she explores themes of identities, decoloniality and Balkan futurisms. This critical exploration has led Maja to self-burials, diving into water to recall memories, sensory impairment experiments, and endurance practice. She completed a practice-based PhD in 2019 and presented her works across the UK and internationally, including London, Corby, Leicester, Lincoln, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth, Aberdeen, Zürich, Sarajevo and Zagreb.
My work employs the body through walking, performing and listening.
My work engages with audiences and in public space, problematising power relations, as well as complex sociopolities.
My work learns from and employs a range of sensory modalities.
Individual and group soundwalking (walking with focus on listening), has over time become a key research method and an art form that brings into focus social, political, and ecological complexities through attentive listening. Recently, I developed a series of soundwalks in a park on the outskirts of Aberdeen that is endangered by industrial developments in an energy transition zone. The walk’s methodology highlights different forms of violence while engaging with memories and histories of the sites123.
My work generates knowledge and exists simultaneously in a multitude of forms through varied forms of experience; such as live performances, and different forms of audio-visual documentation.
As a personal defence suit, made out of heavy-duty sacks filled with 50 kg of soil, Defend and Protect (2024-, Zagreb) is worn during urban walks. The work references the experience of military conflict and the dangers of climate change. The suit emits the sounds of civil and military aerial drones. As a performer, I wear microphones that record the interactions with people drone sounds mixed with urban soundscape, providing a unique practice of performance documentation45.
My art is a way of working through the impacts of varied forms of violence.
Dissolutions (2022-, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Sarajevo, Zagreb) is a condensed response to personal experience of military conflict, trauma and sense of loss triggered by global conflicts. The work is rich in visual and sonic symbolism referencing the centuries of oppression and foreign occupation of Bosnia. By dissonantly sawing at a saz, a traditional stringed instrument originally from Turkey, and the sound of a hand-cranked air-raid siren, the work is an overwhelming sensory performance/installation consciously utilising the unsettling characteristics of noise. A distorted recording of a cable car ride from Trebevic mountain to Sarajevo city centre is used to reference the journey that taps into rich histories of these sites6.
I mediate between inner and outer cues, as well as geographic and institutional boundaries.
Silencer (2018-, London, Aberdeen, Corby, Leicester, Zagreb) is a wearable sculpture, a sensory impairment suit, and a performance in a public space. The work is made of sound-damping material normally found on the walls of radio stations, allowing me to stand out visually in public space while also preventing me from hearing any noise. As I don’t verbally communicate with the public while performing, the work can inspire broad reactions from bewilderment to humour. Simultaneously, the suit itself records sounds around me, leading to other sound-based iterations of the piece. At the conceptual level, the surface of the suit absorbs the urban noise, representing a unique proposition of sonic activism in the context of acoustic ecologies78.
My work leads to creative use of archives through presentations of performances, their traces, narratives, objects, stand-alone electro-acoustic compositions and films.
In Search of the Sun (2021 -, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Zurich) problematises the legacy of modernism and the vexed problems around global migration in response to climate change. Commissioned by Aberdeen Art Gallery in response to J.D. Fergusson’s modernist portrait bust Eastre: Hymn to the Sun, I inhabit the character of Eastre- a golden goddess figure of transnational qualities- that opens out the limiting imaginaries of colonialism and maps them onto their contemporary mutations91011.
My work is realised through projects often over long periods of time; the soil samples are transported internationally, there are places I come back to listen repeatedly and problems I revisit.
One Thousand Pomegranate Seeds (Perth 2017) is a gallery-based performance using soil samples transported across Bosnia and Serbia to Scotland, as well as a range of other highly symbolic objects that refer to Bosnian folklore, ethnic segregation in post-war Bosnia, and the nature of armed conflict. The soil used in the piece represents a symbolic and actual record of time that accompanies my sound field recording of Sarajevo, featuring church bells and the Muslim call for prayer voicing simultaneously1213.
My work creates new imaginaries and taps into often unsettling visions of the future.
Grains of Sound (Banchory 2016) – Through the act of burial and re-emergence I explore the experience of displacement and collective and personal trauma. The soil was transported from the venue’s garden and returned after the performance. Through sound and, specifically, attentive listening, I contemplated the overwhelming realisation that one gains through personal experience of conflict- that ourselves and our loved ones can perish any moment on any given day14.
My work is a condensed situation/s endowed with layers of research and experience.
The text was written in collaboration with Adna Muslija (2024).
1Living with Energy Transition, soundwalk, photo by Phoebe McBride, 2023 Aberdeen.
2Living with Energy Transition, soundwalk, photo by Phoebe McBride.
3For the Time Being, soundwalk, 2023 Sarajevo.
4Defend and Protect (Odbrana i Zaštita), performance, photo by Boris Cvjetanović, 2024.
5Defend and Protect (Odbrana i Zaštita), performance, photo by Boris Cvjetanović, 2024 Zagreb.
6Dissolutions, performance, video still, 2022 Edinburgh.
7Silencer, performance, photo by Matt Cawrey, 2022.
8Silencer, performance, photo by Matt Cawrey, 2022
9In Search of the Sun, film still, 2021.
10In Search of the Sun, performance, 2021. Aberdeen
11In Search of the Sun, performance, photo by Markus Goessi, 2022 Zurich.
12One Thousand Pomegranate Seeds, video still, 2017 Perth.
13One Thousand Pomegranate Seeds, performance, photo by Fergus Connor, 2017 Perth.
14Grains of Sound, performance, video stills, 2016 Banchory.
– r. 1987. u Sarajevu. Živi i radi u Škotskoj od 2015. godine. Interdisciplinarna je umjetnica koja djeluje kroz performans, zvuk i pokretnu sliku. U svom istraživački orijentisanom radu bavi se temama identiteta, dekolonijalnosti i balkanskih futurizama. Ova kritička istraživanja dovela su je do performansa samosahranjivanja, zarona u vodu kako bi prizvala sjećanja, eksperimenata s osjetilnim oštećenjima i izdržljivostima u performansu. Doktorirala je kroz praksu 2019. godine i izlagala svoje radove širom Ujedinjenog Kraljevstva i međunarodno, uključujući London, Corby, Leicester, Lincoln, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth, Aberdeen, Zürich, Sarajevo, i Zagreb.
Moj rad koristi tijelo kroz hodanje, performans i slušanje.
Moj rad komunicira s publikom i javnim prostorom, problematizirajući odnose moći i složene socio-političke dinamike.
Moj rad uči iz različitih osjetilnih modaliteta i koristi ih u procesu stvaranja.
Individualne i grupne zvučne šetnje (hodanje s fokusom na slušanje) s vremenom su postale ključna istraživačka metoda i umjetnička forma kojom istražujem društvene, političke i ekološke složenosti kroz pažljivo slušanje. Nedavno sam razvila seriju zvučnih šetnji u parku na rubu Aberdeena, koji je ugrožen industrijskim razvojem u zoni energetske tranzicije. Metodologija ovih šetnji ističe različite oblike nasilja dok istovremeno angažira sjećanja i historije tih mjesta123.
Moj rad generira znanje i istovremeno postoji u različitim formama i iskustvima – kroz žive performanse i različite oblike audio-vizuelne dokumentacije.
Kao lični odbrambeni oklop, načinjen od vreća ispunjenih s 50 kg zemlje, Defend and Protect (2024–, Zagreb) nosi se tokom urbanih šetnji. Rad referira na iskustvo vojnog konflikta i prijetnje klimatskih promjena. Oklop emituje zvukove civilnih i vojnih dronova, dok ja kao izvođačica nosim mikrofone koji snimaju interakcije s ljudima, miješajući zvukove dronova s urbanim pejzažom, stvarajući jedinstvenu praksu performativne dokumentacije45.
Moj rad je način suočavanja s različitim oblicima nasilja.
Dissolutions (2022–, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Sarajevo, Zagreb) je zgusnut odgovor na lično iskustvo vojnog sukoba, traume i gubitka, izazvan globalnim konfliktima. Rad obiluje vizuelnim i zvučnim simbolima koji referiraju na stoljeća ugnjetavanja i strane okupacije Bosne. Kombinujući disonantno piljenje saza – tradicionalnog žičanog instrumenta porijeklom iz Turske – sa zvukom ručne sirene za vazdušnu uzbunu, stvaram preplavljujuće osjetilno iskustvo koje svjesno koristi uznemirujuće karakteristike buke. Distortirana snimka vožnje žičarom od Trebevića do centra Sarajeva evocira slojevite historije tih mjesta6.
Posredujem između unutrašnjih i vanjskih signala, geografskih i institucionalnih granica.
Silencer (2018–, London, Aberdeen, Corby, Leicester, Zagreb) je nosiva skulptura, odijelo koje utišava zvukove i performans u javnom prostoru. Napravljeno od materijala koji se obično koristi za zvučnu izolaciju u radio-stanicama, odijelo omogućava moju vizuelnu izdvojenost u javnom prostoru, dok mi istovremeno onemogućava da čujem bilo kakav zvuk. Pošto ne komuniciram verbalno s publikom tokom performansa, reakcije variraju od zbunjenosti do humora. Istovremeno, odijelo snima zvukove iz okoline, stvarajući nove zvučne iteracije rada. Na konceptualnom nivou, površina odijela upija urbanu buku, nudeći jedinstvenu formu zvučnog aktivizma u kontekstu akustičkih ekologija78.
Moj rad vodi ka kreativnoj upotrebi arhiva kroz prezentaciju performansa, njihovih tragova, narativa, objekata, elektroakustičkih kompozicija i filmova.
In Search of the Sun (2021–, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Zürich) problematizira naslijeđe modernizma i složene probleme globalnih migracija uzrokovanih klimatskim promjenama. Rad je naručen od Aberdeen Art Gallery kao odgovor na modernističku skulpturu J.D. Fergussona Eastre: Hymn to the Sun. U performansu preuzimam lik Eastre – zlatne boginje transnacionalnih kvaliteta – koja otvara prostor za reinterpretaciju kolonijalnih imaginarija i njihovih savremenih mutacija91011.
Moj rad se realizira kroz dugoročne projekte; uzorci zemlje prenose se preko međunarodnih granica, vraćam se na ista mjesta kako bih ponovo slušala i suočila se s problemima koji me proganjaju.
One Thousand Pomegranate Seeds (Perth, 2017) je galerijski performans koji koristi uzorke zemlje prenesene iz Bosne i Srbije u Škotsku, zajedno s nizom simboličnih predmeta koji referiraju na bosanski folklor, etničku segregaciju u postratnoj Bosni i prirodu oružanih sukoba. Zemlja korištena u radu predstavlja simbolički i stvarni zapis vremena, dok zvučni pejzaž Sarajeva – uključujući istovremeno zvonjavu crkvenih zvona i ezan – artikuliše kompleksnost bosanske stvarnosti1213.
Moj rad stvara nove imaginarije i otvara često uznemirujuće vizije budućnosti.
Grains of Sound (Banchory, 2016) – Kroz čin zakopavanja i ponovnog izranjanja istražujem iskustvo raseljeništva i kolektivne i lične traume. Zemlja je prenesena iz vrta izložbenog prostora i vraćena nakon performansa. Kroz zvuk i pažljivo slušanje, suočavam se s neizbježnim saznanjem koje dolazi s iskustvom konflikta – da možemo izgubiti sebe i svoje voljene u bilo kojem trenutku14.
Moj rad je kondenzovana situacija prožeta slojevima istraživanja i iskustva.
Tekst je napisan u suradnji sa Adnom Muslija (2024).
1Living with Energy Transition, zvučna šetnja, foto: Phoebe McBride, 2023 Aberdeen.
2Living with Energy Transition, zvučna šetnja, foto: Phoebe McBride.
3For the Time Being, zvučna šetnja, 2023 Sarajevo.
4Odbrana i Zaštita, performans, foto: Boris Cvjetanović, 2024.
5Odbrana i Zaštita, performans, foto: Boris Cvjetanović, 2024 Zagreb.
6Dissolutions, performans, video still, 2022 Edinburgh.
7Silencer, performans, foto: Matt Cawrey, 2022.
8Silencer, performans, foto: Matt Cawrey, 2022.
9In Search of the Sun, film still, 2021.
10In Search of the Sun, performance, 2021 Aberdeen.
11In Search of the Sun, performans, foto: Markus Goessi, 2022 Zurich.
12One Thousand Pomegranate Seeds, video still, 2017 Perth.
13One Thousand Pomegranate Seeds, performance, foto: Fergus Connor, 2017 Perth.
14Grains of Sound, performans, video stills, 2016 Banchory.
