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Pregnant Memory

Lecture
Work by Sanja
Thursday, September 14, 2023, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Speaker

In my short artist’s talk, I will speak about my art practice from early beginnings in Socialist Yugoslavia until today. Since the 1970s I have continuously critically reflected on the construction of gender roles under the conditions of alleged socialist equality of women and examined the gendered media space as well as the institutional frameworks within the cultural field. "Double Life" - which is the title of one of my early works - stands for the performative aspect of my early practice and refers to the structural relation between the "public" and the "private" sphere and to the gender-specific body politics involved in it. 
In the new state of Croatia, I scrutinized reactionary nationalist contamination of the public sphere by critically examining the collective amnesia about the anti-fascist past, which I addressed both as an artist and activist. In the nineties, I worked with the organizations fighting violence against women propelled by the new nation-state's conservatism and patriarchy and developed projects addressing the newly emerging forms of predatory capitalism and its consequences.

Sanja Iveković was born in Zagreb where she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts. She has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad (Paris Biennale, Manifesta, Documenta, Liverpool Biennial, Prague Biennale, Istanbul Biennale, etc.) and she has had retrospective exhibitions in Innsbruck, Berlin, Cologne, Geotheburgu, Barcelona, New York, Luxembourg and London. Sanja's video works and video installations have been screened at numerous international festivals and events in Europe, USA, Canada, Japan and Thailand. Symposiums on the work of Iveković were held in Hofburg (Innsbruck, 2001), Koelenischer Kunstverein (Cologne 2006), Antoni Tapies Foundation (Barcelona 2007), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven, 2009), MoMA (New York, 2011), the Royal College of Art (London, 2013).

In her artistic pratice, Sanja is exploring and probing socio-political themes, focusing on strategies and methods of resistance to the ruling relations of power, while the main characteristic of her work is to speak from the position of the female subject. In addition to her artistic activity, she is engaged in women's activism and is the founder and member of several Croatian women's NGOs.

Zoom Meeting 
Meeting ID: 967 8663 6505 
Passcode: 0000