2019
Workshop, action, objects, photo
Zagreb, 16.02.2019. consists of banners made by children hand-writing and a photograph showing five girls from the back carrying the banners on the main square of Zagreb, on 16.02.2019. The banners are placed in the gallery as they would be placed in storage, available to be used in the future. The photograph shows the occasion in which they were used.
The starting point of the work is the absence of critical thinking and discussions on citizens’ rights and obligations from Croatian institutional education. This work came out through the workshop with local youngsters organized by the artist that dealt practically with these notions.
Throughout the time of conceiving the work in the gallery and executing it in a public space, processes such as – finding ways to rethink dominant narrative, learning through direct experience, collaborating, using available materials to express your stances, sharing it with the public – were practiced among the participants. By staging the action in the public space, direct emancipated behavior was performed in front of a broad range of citizens. The work was made in collaboration with youngsters that were interested in accepting the invitation to gather to think around feminist and environmental issues. A special contribution to the gathering was the story Gvalup by Tamara Bakran that deals with these topics. Zagreb, 16.02.2019. was made as a part of the group show Midterm that was curated by curatorial collective What, How & for Whom/ WHW.
Photo credits: Jakub Danilewicz