Wounded attachments that Wendy Brown was writing about, are delicate, frequently toxic and physically non-existent, invisible threads that keep us attached to injured, painful spots that pulsate inside us, and like a phantom limb, we may feel long after they are no longer part of our new reality. Via these bonds, we slide back to the epicenter of their beginning, and the central question that is being reconsidered is how does such a feeling, such a mixture of vulnerability, injury and attachment, becomes the basis for defining and forming an identity?

That very same question, Slavica is also addressing in her new works, just moving from the position of global and collective (pain, trauma, marginalization, memories…) to very personal and intimate position and language, wondering how thesense of woundedness becomes the sense of identity? What is that I don’t speak about but I can feel, how does silenced tension look like, where is the place for all the things I ignore? Brown-alike aware that every avoidance and every attempt to turn back on painful knots in personal and collective narratives, result only in reaffirmation of the painful structures, Slavica strives to materialize what usually escapes any definition because it can only be experienced emotionally. If Hannah Arendt defines Lebenswelt as a world of human experience and interpretation, a world we have in common, a place of intersection, that as such represents a framework for both understanding, and political judging, where speech, thought and action take place, an exhibition “As if a monsoon suddenly became silent” opens up additional space for coexistence. It offers a world in which we do not recognize each other only by action, and we do not meet directly and necessarily loudly, but we mutually understand whatwe are silent about. Rather than on the rational, Slavica puts emphasis on the relational, which colors each of the encounters with exposure, accessibility, and vulnerabilitythat turn out to have transformative qualities.

With a series of sculptures, Slavica tries to listen and react to voiceless, and perhaps unexpressed but certainly remembered. Similar to what we are left with after the roaring storm calms down and stops. She tries to reintegrate into consciousness something repressed, rejected and abandoned by giving it a shape. Rejecting the idea of ​​a strong individual who is in control (or persistently trying to take control over all aspects of owns life and personality), that is quite present in contemporary discourse, Slavica’s practice is actually a delicate evaluation of positions of power, and raises the question of what vulnerability really is and how great is her strength

Teodora Jeremić

Photo: Marko Radovanović