Montenegro

Darja Bajagić’s project, titled It Takes an Island to Feel This Good, curated by Ana Simona Zelenović and organised by the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montenegro, presents a critical consideration of the culture of collective memory and our relationship to shared historical heritage. The artist reflects upon these topics through painting and sculpture, focusing on the complex and multidimensional history of the Montenegrin island of Mamula. Its fort, built in 1853 by the Austro- Hungarian general Lazar Mamula, was converted into a concentration camp by the fascist forces of Benito Mussolini’s Kingdom of Italy during World War II; and was revitalised with the assistance of foreign investments as a luxury hotel beginning in 2015.
Bajagić’s works combine archival material with distinctive referential and symbolical interventions. Her research-driven practice investigates our reception, perception, and experience of images and other visual representations, negotiating the lack or presence of their corresponding historical or social context(s)—or both. By experimenting with the construction and circulation of symbolic systems of meaning, the artist explores how meaning is generated through visualisation and how opinions gain traction in a contemporary, image-based society.