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ArtistStatementIvanaDragsic
For some time now I have used my works to deal with the atmosphere created during any kind of collective events or actions. I am interested in people’s motif to protest, celebrate a holiday together, listen to someone give a speech, watch a film at the cinema… I am actually interested in the moment when everybody’s attention is focused on one thing.
I have researched this phenomenon with a few of my works, and I want to find out if that moment of focused group attention can be produced artificially, not spontaneously or for a reason (interest, compulsion, fun).
At the same time, like some latent mini-obsession, I keep thinking about the ways to treat social phenomena, problems, movements and changes in every one of my next works. I usually find inspiration in the social (and societal) terrorists and petty criminals – those who don’t depend on anyone, not interested in anything but pleasing their petty, narrow-minded momentary appetite, those who don’t have the feeling of living in a community. Essentially, the person can and should act individually, but always has to have in mind things such as the community, the street, the room, the bench, the toilet, the traffic sign, the club, the bus – all that shared with another person, or more people.
With the piece SK-320-IB, I try to relax, not think about these problems so seriously, and not seek complicated ways (with deep messages about social living) of their presentation. I decided to address the two points of my interest and somehow draw attention to them. I was hoping to get lucky and find the sufficient language to tell that, because sometimes, the only thing you can do in the given situation is exactly that – point the problem. (Like when you tell a hillbilly he’s a hillbilly and he’s annoyed).
The lucky circumstance is that I picked up the form I presented the piece in from another place (like I constantly pick up other things) – and the form itself exists as an account of some collective phenomenon. My two favorite subjects obtained common parameters. Traffic offences that have seriously endangered someone’s safety and health – represented as victims of Katrina, or kidnapping, or some disease…
Finally, SK-320-IB is a homage and a joke about the societal criminals, the dreg of the contemporary city living, my naivety and pathetic. Because really, without any fractures or bruises, I can’t do anything – but point my finger at them. Like when you tell a hillbilly he’s a hillbilly and he’s annoyed.
Ivana Dragsic
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