Deze zater­dag opent de expo van San­dra Lakiće­vić in de hal van Stelplaats 🧷

De Brus­sel­se kun­ste­naar uit Ser­vië pre­sen­teert er ​‘A Nar­ra­ti­ve against Nar­ra­ti­ve’ — een ver­za­me­ling wer­ken uit drie expo’s die teza­men een nieuw nar­ra­tief vor­men in de ruwe con­text van onze hal. Een expo gecre­ëerd uit her­in­ne­rin­gen en per­spec­tie­ven door­heen het leven van de ex-Broei­plaats resident. 

De ope­ning van de expo vindt zater­dag in plaats van 16 tot 20u, nadien is Sandra’s expo dage­lijks te bezich­ti­gen in de hal van Stel­plaats van 12 tot 18u tot en met 8 april! 

Ter gele­gen­heid strik­ten we San­dra voor een inter­view over haar roots, inspi­ra­tie, toe­komst­plan­nen en meer. 

Hi Sandra! Tell us a bit more about yourself.

I am a Ser­bi­an-born and Brus­sels-based artist. I stu­died pain­ting at the Facul­ty of Fine Arts in Bel­gra­de, then moved on to visu­al arts at LUCA School of Arts in Brus­sels. My prac­ti­ce invol­ves dif­fe­rent media (prin­ted mat­ter, per­for­man­ce, video, instal­la­ti­on), but always revol­ves around the noti­ons of time and memory. 

More spe­ci­fi­cally, I am inte­rested in the cycle of remem­be­ring and for­get­ting and the sco­pe of per­so­nal and col­lec­ti­ve ima­ge-making. Recent­ly, I also star­ted inves­ti­ga­ting the sym­bi­o­tic rela­ti­ons­hip bet­ween archi­tec­tu­re and memo­ry, whe­re I find inspi­ra­ti­on in the indi­vi­du­al his­to­ries of dif­fe­rent exhi­bi­ti­on spaces. 

From 01/04 until 08/04, you’ll be bringing your solo show "A Narrative against Narrative" to Stelplaats. What is this project about?

The exhi­bi­ti­on A Nar­ra­ti­ve against Nar­ra­ti­ve encom­pas­ses works from my ongo­ing series Tal­king fibres (2019-), a video instal­la­ti­on From ​‘alrea­dy no lon­ger’ to ​‘not yet’ (2020) and a series of works on paper con­cei­ved during my live per­for­man­ces of Lag (2019-).

The exhi­bi­ti­on’s tit­le refers to the idea that con­nects the works: con­veying a nar­ra­ti­ve wit­hout expli­cit­ly tel­ling a sto­ry. Alt­hough the noti­on of a sto­ry­li­ne is still pre­sent, it has been moved to an abstract level and imp­lied through the accu­mu­la­ti­on of ima­ges and repe­ti­ti­on of gestu­res. For this exhi­bi­ti­on, I also cre­a­ted a site-spe­ci­fic work con­si­de­ring the archi­tec­tu­re and his­to­ry of the spa­ce itself.

This isn’t the first project you’ve done at Stelplaats, right?

Indeed. In 2019, I was an artist in resi­den­ce at for­mer Broei­plaats which was part of Stel­plaats. I used that oppor­tu­ni­ty to start wor­king on the Tal­king Fibres series and also to get fami­liar with the spa­ce. Ever sin­ce that peri­od, I have been intri­gued by the trans­for­ma­ti­on of the De Lijn gara­ge into a cul­tu­ral cen­ter and drawn by its architecture.

Memory and narratives of the present and past seem to be recurring in multiple projects of yours. Why do these themes resonate with you?

I can’t pre­ci­se­ly tell how I got the­re, but I think it was a series of ques­ti­ons and events whe­re one thing led to ano­ther. My work has been affec­ted by life in post-soci­a­list Yugo­sla­via. Back in Ser­bia, that work often reflec­ted my per­cep­ti­on of the socio-poli­ti­cal fac­tors that con­tri­bu­ted to the cul­tu­ral nar­ra­ti­ve of that life. 

Having moved to Bel­gi­um and having been given an oppor­tu­ni­ty to obser­ve my work from a dif­fe­rent per­spec­ti­ve, I felt a need to dis­tan­ce myself from the acqui­red and hea­vi­ly loca­li­zed per­cep­ti­ve fil­ters that made up who I was. It is also the rejec­ti­on of that pre­vious nar­ra­ti­ve that now makes me won­der — am I not cre­a­ting just ano­ther kind of nar­ra­ti­ve? One which is, per­haps, not meant to tell a sto­ry of the past, but which the past, nevert­he­less, gives rise to?

Any future plans we should look out for?

In June, I will start my resi­d­en­cy at The Green Cor­ri­dor in Brus­sels whe­re I intend to devel­op a new work that rela­tes to that spa­ce. The­re will be a public pre­sen­ta­ti­on and an end-of-resi­d­en­cy exhi­bi­ti­on. I am also pre­pa­ring a big solo show at the Con­tem­po­ra­ry Art Gal­lery Subo­ti­ca in Ser­bia for the end of the year. The gal­lery is loca­ted in the pala­ce of Ferenc Raichle — a pro­tec­ted cul­tu­ral monu­ment with rich his­to­ri­cal heri­ta­ge — so I am eager­ly loo­king for­ward to that.