JELENA ANDŽIĆ

The Eternal Other

oil on canvas, 2021

some pieces included in the group exhibition For Every Solution There is a Problem at MUTUO, Barcelona, 2021

This work is a part of an ongoing research that I am conducting on the topic of The Balkan peninsula in relation to the Western gaze. What interests me here is the fact that the Balkans are still an unknown, uncharted term that somehow always carries a negative connotation. Although it is known to be a peninsula it actually doesn’t fulfill geographical requirements to be a peninsula, so it remains only a socio-political term, which, supposedly no one desires to be identified with. As Slavoj Žižek said - Balkans, the Eternal Other. 

Žižek also raises an interesting question by pointing out that what builds the ideology surrounding the Balkans is that gaze or dream that the West projects onto the Balkans. That gaze is what keeps and constructs the ideology of the Balkans. These pieces reflect on the notions of the gaze and the other.