Sandra Vitaljić: I Just Greet Back

June 28th – July 23rd 2021

Photo: Davor Konjikušić

“For me being an immigrant means I will forever miss something.”

In the past several years, global attention has increasingly been directed towards the consequences of migrations – with the arrival of refugees from war-stricken countries, as well as economic migrants who take the step in the hope of finding a better life somewhere else – however, the social phenomenon has been around for a long time. The decision to leave one’s country creates a whole host of consequences, being a migrant, one faces in the new surroundings. Apart from learning a new language, accepting a different mentality and adopting new cultural specificities, perhaps one of the most difficult realizations lies precisely in the fact that, in the eyes of one’s fellow residents, one will always be perceived as a foreigner, or, more precisely, a migrant.

In her latest work, entitled I just greet back, Sandra Vitaljić presents a collective diary comprised of stories of every-day struggles of women from different backgrounds now living in Sweden and sharing a fate similar to hers. After moving to Sweden in 2018, the author, prompted by her own experience of adjustment to the new country, started meeting other immigrant women and collecting their stories, strongly marked by a sense of isolation, unbelonging and exclusion. In addition to revealing their working and living conditions in the new surroundings, their stories reflect the struggle to find dignity under precarious circumstances, at the same time becoming a reflection of today’s divided society. On the walls of the Spot Gallery, the collective diary, made up of diverse stories, is complemented with the photographs taken by the author, giving rise to a powerful textual and visual symbiosis of often untold experiences.

This post is also available in: Croatian