Belgrade 2020

„To be here is a journey through time, into a prospering past and into a dystopian future at the same time. Viewed with my artist’s eyes, the city is a huge installation in a constant process with many idiosyncratic players such as time, weather, politics, people, war destruction, foreign investors, sub culture and alternative movements. To me, not much around here seems purposeful, and that harbors a great freedom, too. I feel privileged to be here, to feel this snapshot of the city, the atmosphere of great change in the air. All of that in stark contrast to our seemingly perfect world at home.”

Canton of Thurgau’s cultural foundation offers artists and mediators from all areas with a connection to Thurgau an atelier scholarship in Serbian capital Belgrade. The stay in Belgrade leads artists and mediators to the edge of forming Europe and to the periphery of the familiar Middle-European cultural sphere. Belgrade is one of the largest cities in Southeastern Europe, where art nouveau buildings and Art Deco architecture are in contrast with prefab buildings and postmodern glass palaces. The atelier scholarship is meant to be used for the development and implementation of an independent artistic or curatorial project or to free up space to specifically deepen and broaden the artistic or curatorial interests and competencies.

„In Belgrade, I want to try out new approaches by bringing together the different strands of my artistic career, such as textile design, illustration, cartoon, drawing, performance, installation and sculpture. For some time past, those elements connect organically in various formations, but I want to melt together the work in a more explicit conglomerate. With the help of my ways of working, such as actions in the public sphere, drawing, sketch books, and also in relation to contemporary and historic events, I want to explore how forms of expression depend on the place and time of their emergence. My vision is to let expression and language become a sculptural form, to bring together the complex levels of installation and to relate them to contemporary drawings and paintings. The involvement with the interesting cultural history of Belgrade, the architecture, exhibitions etc. and encounters in the public sphere, are supposed to generate content focus and multilayered meanings.

Another aspect regarding content in a material sense are cloths and curtains on which I work. I buy those materials on flea markets and in secondhand shops. On the one hand, those objects already have a history that is inaccessible to me, on the other, it is sustainable material. Those fabrics will be painted, washed and reworked over and over again. Boundless production and wasting in the name of art is often disregarded; with my modus operandi, I want to counteract that.

Atelier residences are essential for my artistic development. Big cities are inspiring through their vivid jungle of art, culture and people from different backgrounds. I can establish important contacts and swap ideas with other artists, get involved with a new world and immerse myself in it, feel lost in a first phase and newly question myself and what I do, leave the placid environment here, flee the busy schedule that makes it hard to concentrate. An atelier residence brings distance, space, time and energy to face new artistic challenges.”

• Current processes on Instagram

• Enjoy 1, Cleaning Sava River 13.3.2020

• Walkie Talkie with Museum Bellpark Kriens

• How long do you want to live? Online exhibition BARONEBREU

• Kulturstiftung Thurgau