Wars Be Like 2024

Three-part installation: wood, plastic, text, house sculpture with internal projection, video loop 2’30” Exhibited at the Interim Show, CSM King’s Cross, London 2024 Wars Be Like is a tripartite installation exploring resistance, domesticity, in the face of power structures. Wars Be Like is an installation exploring resistance, domesticity, in the face of power structures. The work consists of a handcrafted placard reading “ALL WARS SHOULD BE ILLEGAL”, made of wood and plastic, echoing the aesthetic of protest signs, adorned with a cat sculpture. Below the placard, a photograph of a young child’s smiling face is displayed, the gap left by a missing tooth revealing a tiny LCD screen embedded in the mouth. This screen, connected to a Raspberry Pi, plays the video work My Mommy Doesn’t Like Flowers, a quiet, intimate moment showing the artist styling her daughter’s hair before school. Accompanying this work is a standalone text piece which features the statement “all wars should be illegal.” The provocation calls into question the neutral language of policy and challenges the assumption that impartiality is a required position for artists. This element, considers the artist’s positionality within Western contexts while wars rage, asking: how do we navigate personal responsibility, expression, and solidarity when speaking from a place of perceived safety? The house-shaped sculpture, serves as both shelter and screen. From within, a video titled Family Discourse is projected outward through an internal window, evoking the form of a child’s drawing, pictured here in a still. The video shows a domestic game of Cats Cradle, known in Serbian as “Kolariću Paniću,” played between family members. Initially developed as three interconnected yet separable works, the installation brings together sculptural and video-based elements to reflect on the everyday implications of personal activism and positionality.