Businesslike, 2009 – 2016

Businesslike, doubtlessly, continues the autobiographical work written and rewritten by Nina Ðurđević in her other photographic series. Space In Between, Object(ive), Businesslike… these are all elements of becoming aware of one’s own existence. Within oneself, with oneself, with space, with society. In the series showcased in this exhibition, Nina Ðurđević has revisited the last fifteen or so years in which she has had very different jobs. A great number of very different jobs. In 2009 she started to use photography to record herself in different workplaces. The jobs she had had before she felt the need to record her work were reconstructed after the fact. More or less successfully. In addition to captions, she also writes a little story to accompany every photograph. So, what did she face? What does she confront the viewer with? 

We look at her photographs, we read the accompanying stories, and we laugh. Because Nina is funny. We are touched. Because Nina is romantic and likes Béla Hamvas. We are even a little startled. Because Nina is direct. She does not shield us from the sad part of the story, if there is one. And there is one. And it is important. And then, perhaps unintentionally, Nina slowly leads us to the question: What does all this mean? What do the jobs we do mean? Nina’s to her, ours to us. Do we identify with them, do they take us over, or do we just play a part? A different one every time, or always the same one? 

“The how is important, not the what,” Nina will say. 

Iva Prosoli

Object(ive), 2009 – 2013

In line with the modern perception of a woman’s body and its valuation, as well as the author’s current intimist research efforts, this series of self-portraits tackles the notion of a woman in a quasi erotic, widely accepted social and intimately unidentified individual context. She questions her own eroticism against the existing system of values, while (auto)ironically dwelling on the aesthetics imposed by society’s visual – and, consequently, intellectual – preconceptions in the perception and treatment of women.

Self-isolating, 2020

Nina Đurđević’s photo series Self-isolating was created in March 2020, after her return from London, just before, as she calls it, the “global locking in”.

During the fourteen days spent in self-isolation, posting photos accompanied by short texts on her Facebook page every day at the same time, the author recorded her moods during those moments that we somehow all had in common at the time, because we were bound to a familiar space, albeit now with reduced maneuvering capabilities. 

Nina Đurđević’s work is ascetically precise, yet rich in details, while her mise-en-scène is constructed into a narrative which she uses to interpret the mood. She is focused on herself, quietly and persistently, without noise or commotion. Her self-portraits are a personal testimony of existence and a document of life in a special, yet global moment, created almost spontaneously out of a desire to compose a visual essay with least dynamics and heightened existence in the moment of the snapshot.

Photos are important, but the context in which they are created is even more so, in this instance, it is Nina’s search for herself, for meaning, in a challenging time in which we are our own biggest and most persistent opponents and friends.

Emil Matešić

Decisive, 2021

Portraying people who tried to commit suicide, but weren’t successful, who are today balanced individuals, pictured in the very spot of their attempt with a smile on their faces. This is the most condensed, and as such, the most precise description of this project. Of this autobiographical project. Because I come from a successfully suicidal family. My nuclear family (Mom, Dad, brother and I) has been reduced by half. To the female half. My life experience is quite tinted by this, as well as by some other over-simplifications. My attitudes too. The way I react. The way I perceive things.

And no, I cannot say that I have grown to love life, come to understood its value, that I’ve wisely learnt from other people’s experiences, that I started to live life to the fullest owing to my experiences of loss.

And yet, I love life, I think it is precious when you feel it as such; I am trying to learn from other people’s experiences, I live the fullest life I possibly can.

This project is imagined as an Ode to Life. Life, a fact we all share. We are alive, aren’t we? To life that is diverse, but most of all educational. It is broadening. To life that allows us to paint it ourselves. We are the ones who determine the colour of our experience. This portrayed group of decisives has a more comprehensive experience because, I’d dare to say, they’ve chosen both options – the one in which you leave and the one in which you stay. They stayed for a reason. Fine, they were spared for a reason. Certainly, a reason.

We don’t know the reason, it’s been said.

I think we do.

Life is beautiful. If we see it as beautiful. Because of its diversity and experience. Because we choose. Because we are here. This is one decisive project. A project which does not hide its weaknesses, but rather uses them as a helping hand. A project that refutes loneliness amid desperation.

A project that employs colour.