Gallery N and S: The Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina

Duration: March 11th – April 30th 2021.

“MISSING STORIES. Forced Labour under Nazi Occupation. An Artistic Approach” is a joint artistic project initiated by the Goethe-Institut in Serbia with the support of the EVZ foundation. Five curators (Thomas Elsen, PhD – The Art Collections and Museums of Augsburg: H2 – The Centre for Contemporary Art, Augsburg, Sanja Kojić Mladenov, PhD – The Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, Novi Sad, Una Popović – The Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, Adela Demetja – Tirana Art Lab, Tirana, Natalija Vujošević – Institute for Contemporary Art, Cetinje) carefully selected ten artists from Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and Germany to join the project and to deal artistically with its main theme – forced labour in the Third Reich.

The topic of forced labour during the German occupation of the Balkans is seldom tackled in collective memory – the relevant documentation is scant, public events or debates dealing with the topic are rare, and this sad chapter of European history is left out in history classes and textbooks. On the other hand, numerous families remember the fate of their ancestors who were engaged in forced labour in Nazi Germany during the occupation, be it in factories, labour camps or agricultural work. Owing to this, the destinies of the forced labourers are also present in the individual memories of the current generation, with artists and intellectuals approaching them in a special way.

The artists participating in the project are: Burkhard Schittny (Germany), Christian Hörl (Germany), Aleksandar Zograf (Serbia), Milorad Mladenović (Serbia), diSTRUKTURA (Serbia), Dragan Vojvodić (Serbia), Ivan Salatić (Montenegro), Lenka Đorojević (Montenegro), Donika Çina (Albania) and Remijon Pronja (Albania). They are joined in Novi Sad by Lea Vidaković and Selman Trtovac, from Serbia.

Their works have been created through the use of different media – from photography, through paintings to audio-visual installations. The inspiration for the works of some of the artists partaking in the project stems from the experiences of their own ancestors who were engaged in forced labour in the period of the Nazi occupation.

The aforementioned art pieces will be exhibited as part of the “Missing Stories” tour exhibition in the origin countries of the artists – Serbia (Belgrade and Novi Sad), Albania (Tirana), Montenegro (Podgorica) and Germany (Berlin and Augsburg).

For more information visit: missingstories.net

www.goethe.de/serbien/missingstories

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Goethe-Institut: www.goethe.de/belgrad
EVZ: https://www.stiftung-evz.de/