Mia Cvitković: “We shouldn’t be late for lunch”

The Spot Gallery, the Office for Photography and the Academy of Dramatic Art announce the exhibition We shouldn’t be late for lunch by the young artist Mia Cvitković. The exhibition opening will be held on 20th June at 7 p.m.

Memories and meanings woven into private photographs are often intelligible only to the eyes of the people close to the subjects depicted. If we were to transfer these private photographs from family albums into the form of photobook, and then place them in a gallery, the reading of these captured images would be an entirely different one. Mia Cvitković – the author of works gathered under the title ‘We shouldn’t be late for lunch’, started photographing her younger brothers some ten years ago, and, what started out as playful fun evolved into a long-term artistic project. The intimate nature of the photographs stems from the relationship of deep mutual trust, while the captured moments resemble a diary of the two boys’ growing up. As Patricia Holland remarks in her essay ‘Sweet it is to scan…’: Personal photographs and popular photography, children are able to affect the way they are presented in photographs only to a slight degree, however, as they grow up and reach adolescence, their relationship towards other people’s gazes gradually changes.

This exhibition showcases three photobooks created while the young author was earning her degree in photography from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb and marks the first time she has decided to exhibit these photographs in a gallery space. Precisely in doing so, the author, as the older sister of the subjects depicted in the photographs, loses control over other people’s gazes, whereas the captured everyday scenes and their personal relationship are laid bare before the gaze of others. Mia Cvitković documents her siblings growing up, their changing physical appearance, maturation, as well as their changing interests, and it is precisely her photographic stance that affects the boys’ sincere and relaxed gazes. As the author notes, during the continuous process of photographing them, what is foregrounded is the long-term building of a relationship of trust, which is why she observes these photographs as their joint artistic work. Though it is not known how much longer the photographing process will hold a central position in the relationship between the author and her siblings, lunch as a place of encounter and daily exchanges remains an activity that should not be put off. Despite the fact that their relationship, as well as the different quotidian situations and her brothers’ moods constantly change, what remains unchanged is the lunch they should not be late for.