Lexicon of Tanja’s Ostojić (2011–17) is an interdisciplinary, participatory research project in which the on-line social media networks as well as collaborations with women who share the same first name and family name has been utilised.
The Name-sisters are characterised by diverse age, different levels of education, professions, social statuses, diverse nationalities and diverse life experiences, and they can understand each other by speaking similar languages and all of them, or their parents originate from the territory of ex Yugoslavia.
Via personalised sociological research and direct social and creative exchange Berlin based artist Tanja Ostojić creates maps that document how approximately 30 project participants – 30 name sisters — have been migrating, and what identity issues, gender issues and labour conditions concern them.
During 2017 author of the concept will organize four workshops and two solo exhibitions in cooperation with Goethe Institut from Belgrade and four museums of contemporary art: from Belgrade (Serbia), Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Rijeka and Zagreb (Croatia), and the book in English published by Museum of Contemporary Art from Belgrade and Live Arts Development Agency London.
Presentation of the project at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Republic of Srpska will be followed by a two-day closed workshop (1st and 2nd of April), titled ''Embroidered Lexicon of Tanjas Ostojić'', which will be moderated by authors Tanja Ostojić and Vahida Ramujkić.
Documentary embroidery, as its name suggests, is a documentary technique which in its base has a traditional technique of embroidery — now employed in the new context — documenting ever more complex and layered reality and relations within. Imposed slowness of this technique provides us to spend more time together, with people, discussing and contrasting diverse viewpoints and opinions, that slowly get stitched on the canvas, creating more complex representations of the reality and establishing more coherent relations among us and our surrounding. With a group of women gathered around an interdisciplinary project Lexicon of Tanja Ostojić name sisters, we would gather in a collaborative creation of the tapestry that would from this random perspectives and in different ways reflect on the position of female identity and migration, generating a complex and nuanced representation of those essential conditions.
Realisation of this project during 2017, was powered by Regional fund of Goethe Institut for Balkans.
Tanja Ostojić (born 1972 in Yugoslavia) is Berlin based performance and interdisciplinary artist who studied arts in Serbia, France and Germany. She includes herself as a character in performances and uses diverse media in her artistic researches, thereby examining social configurations, power relationships, feminist issues, economy and biopolitics. She works predominantly from the migrant woman’s perspective, while political positioning, humour and integration of the recipient define approaches in her work. Since 1994 she presented her work in a large number of exhibitions, venues and festivals around the world, including: Acb Gallery, Budapest (2017), Feminism in Politics!, Pratt Manhattan Gallery New York (2016), Busan Bienalle, South Korea (2016), Homosexualität_en, Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin (2015), Economy CCA Glasgow (2013), Tanja Ostojic: Body, Politics, Agency, Škuc Gallery, Ljubljana (2012), Call the Witness Roma Pavilion, Venice Biennale (2011), Global Feminisms, Brooklyn Museum, New York (2006), Plato of Humankind, Venice Biennale 2001.
Vahida Ramujkić (born 1973 in Yugoslavia) is Belgrade based artist who practices art within a social context. In 2001 with Laia Sadurni she founds Rotor Collective in Barcelona. Till 2008 they realise series of long term projects such as: Poble NOW, AirAutonomy, Manual GPS, Telechronicles, etc. As part of art/research projects she publishes books ‘Schengen with ease' (2006), “Cairo Integration Diary” (2008), ‘Storm, return home and other terrible stories for children’ (2009). In 2008 she initiates collaboration with Aviv Kruglanski with the Documentary Embroidery project that extends to other projects such as Neighbourhood Superheroes (Cairo, Barcelona 2010) and Microcultures.