Co-funded by the
Creative Europe Programme
of the European Union
Creative Europe Programme
of the European Union
As a network, we sense a strong need to facilitate ‘artist-activists’, that develop community processes resulting in objects that are charged with meaning, specificity, even conflict. For that purpose, we’ve created Collection Europe, a series shared by the ACT partners around 4 artists: Ama Josephine Budge, the berru collective, David Weber-Krebs, and the Škart collective.
Kuvarice (embroideries) by ŠkartOver the period of 4 years of the ACT project we will witness a gradually sprouting collection of mappings, experiences, maybe even objects and their attached stories. It allows forms of presentation and communication that charts, across the locations of the partners presenting artists together, different layers of European ecologies.
We introduce you to one of the selected artists, the Škart collective, with the Impractical Women embroideries’ project.
Bunker and Domino will invite the collective to work for two or three weeks
with local communities. This is Škart’s principle of working – developing workshops with local
communities, with which the hosting organisation already has long established
connection (either women, children, youth, refugees…). One of the possibilities to be developed throughout the Collection Europe is the Impractical Women project, in which the collective creates traditional handworks with embroidered messages that gain new attire and become an opportunity for social criticism.
“This time has passed, “kuvarice” have been replaced by more efficient ways of interior protection and they became appreciated artifacts from antique shops. New views, including feminism, had a lot to say about these traditional wall inscriptions. Is the woman’s workplace some place she’d have her head submerged in an oven, is her only function to take care of her home, is being obedient to her husband the key to a successful marriage? The advocates of equality, both male and female, have been asking these questions. No, it isn’t, and it’s what the ladies of a former time had fought for. However, there are many other topics that could have been subject of discussion through these canvases. This broad field of comments on the subjects of politics, economy and other branches dictating everyday activities was first approached by the art group “Škart” from Belgrade. The group poses questions about today’s “ordinary” women and how they can contribute to philosophy, psychology, sociology and other fields of science. ”Dragana Nikoletić