Blurred in their non-existence

Posted on February 4, 2023 by nikolinabutorac

Performative action, supported by Domino Association, in public square ”Cvjetni trg” in Zagreb/ December 2022.

The action of wrapping the monument is a continuation of the work in which I collected people’s statements about rising food prices and local, climate-neutral food. Entering into a conversation with random passers-by, I became aware that a large number of people daily do not have the possibility of a cooked, hot meal. The topic of poverty is primarily neglected, and there are no concrete and consistent solutions to address this problem. The fact that restaurants that want to donate food have to pay VAT on the donation is devastating, as is the fact of how much food is wasted in large stores. The crisis of rising food and energy prices will create a new wave of poverty. Through the gesture of wrapping monuments with cheap, thin paper, in a symbolic way, I cover some parts of them to attract the attention of passers-by. On the piece I wrapped, as well as on the thicker cardboard, which partly looks like a banner for an imagined protest, I write my own poem in prose, inspired by the collected stories of people.

Under the branches of withered will

Blinking tremors mirror their flash

Passing within unknown crowd

Threads twisted, gray, gravitating

Bending for articles from the back shelves

Counting the outlines of the shadows with their irises

Heads looking deeply down

Drowned by public criticism

Swallowing malaise

Under the branches of withered will

Drawing an internal scream

Without a warm meal, building a shame

And while the rays of that same shame spread

To our fridges bombarded with food

We allow, we do not react

Our senses are numb

We are rotting like a thousand pieces

Of unsold fruit and broken gifts

Blurred in their non-existence

A Reverse Line Game

Posted on February 7, 2022 by nikolinabutorac

In this piece, I designed games that should contribute to understanding and recognizing specificity as a virtue. One of the games is the distortion of the accepted norm – in the game, a person without dyslexia is put in a situation of seeking assistance, as opposed to the division of roles within the school system, where dyslexic people are still stigmatized. Dyslexic myself, I want to achieve two-way, equal communication, in which the values of different perceptions are equalized, and differences enrich each other. In addition to photographs as notes of interference in the park’s public space, I used collected natural artifacts, such as dried lichens, branches, soil, my dog’s hair, my own hair, red pepper powder, leaves, cones. The park is a place where my breathing has changed from shallow to deep and where the traces of bitterness, discouragement and misunderstanding caused by school have slowly disappeared.

A game of drawing and solving puzzles, some letters are written upside down, so the team is looking for a person with dyslexia, who will contribute to faster solving and playing the game.

N e i g h b o r s;

draw a neighbor who is unusual to you in some way. Have you ever helped a neighbor? Write the story with chalks on the sidewalk!

L i v e s o f g a m e s f r o m o t h e r p a r t s o f t h e w o r l d; find peers who were born in a distant land. Ask them to teach you a new open air game!

G a r b a g e; collect garbage from the meadow and throw it in a larger container. Draw the most interesting object you have found!

S n o w:

ask parents or grandparents how much snow there was before and where the sledding points were. Draw a map of these points!

Home Displaced

Posted on January 4, 2021 by nikolinabutorac

AK Gallery- Koprivnica

2020

The exhibition “Home Displaced” consists of several segments: a net made of almonds that connects parts of the installation, children’s statements written in pencil on paper, audio recording of the working experience outside of state, stones with recipes against problematic phenomena in society and opening performance.

The inscriptions were created as a result of my interaction with pupils, whose parents or close family members went to work abroad. Their task was to write a text and turn the shapes and sizes of letters into emotions, focusing on a family member they missed the most.

The audio work records my cousin’s experience. He moved to America as a ballet dancer and retrained as a computer programmer. Here again, I deal with the situation of cultural workers and artists whose position in society is often marginalized, requiring a superhuman skills in order to survive. In the ‘’exchange’’ participatory performance from the opening, I’m asking visitors to write in two to three sentences something about their experiences of working abroad. Who does not want to write, can also draw. I’m putting paper plates, a wooden board, dried fruit in front of me and I start to mix dates, cranberries, dried figs, coconut with rice milk into an edible thick mixture, whom which I form one word from their text, or a drawing. In this exchange, each of the visitors receives an edible artifact. The performance act of preparing and consuming food, is an intimate ritual that functions as a metaphor for sharing, recording and exchanging personal stories.

Absorbed Home

Posted on June 11, 2019 by nikolinabutorac

Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb

2019

In this performance, I describe on a microphone what my imaginary home and atelier would look like and how I could live from my work: selling artefacts and photographs of the performances, and practicing contemporary art methods with primary school children, so that one day they could understand and purchase contemporary art. I seek to emphasise how very important it is to have a working space separate from the sleeping area, which many young artists today do not have. At one point, I start addressing the audience, asking them to draw the floor plan of their imaginary home or atelier. According to their sketches, I “sculpt” their homes from a mixture placed on the table (coconut, cocoa, ground nut, cranberries, dates, corn rose, apple juice), and serve them on paper plates to be consumed.

The performance is dedicated to all young people who work abroad and cannot do their art as much as they want (need) to.