ROĐENA BEZ RAZLOGA

Interni monolog u ličnom susretu sa heroinama

Kako u ličnom, tako i u kolektivnom pamćenju svesno (ili nesvesno) biramo šta ćemo pamtiti a šta zaboraviti. Umetnica Milica Rakić se u svojim radovima bavi obnavljanjem sećanja boreći se upravo protiv selektivnog sećanja. Dijalog sa prošlošću nikada ne prestaje, istorija se prekraja i piše nanovo, novi heroji, novi branitelji su u modi... Među njima nema heroina, iako se u današnjem novogovoru po važećem pravopisu na zanimanja i titule u ženskom rodu uredno dodaju sufiksi –kinja/-ica/-ka kako bi se uklopili u projektovanu sliku proevropskog društva. Gotovo amblematske fotografije narodnih heroina nisu poznate novim generacijama „fitnes“ ideologije jer žena ponovo postaje samo lep prizor za muške oči, roba koju treba što bolje prodati (udati). Retradicionalizacijom društva posle ratova 90-ih i povratkom na duboko patrijarhalni model, danas više od šest decenija od dobijanja prava glasa, ponovo se borimo za društvo jednakih mogućnosti pod okriljem evropskih vrednosti i standarda. Nisu li to univerzalne vrednosti koje su naše pretkinje već postigle i zašto se stidimo sopstvene antifašističke tradicije odbacujući je kao neželjeno nasleđe?

Izložba „Rođena bez razloga“ preispituje odnos prema recentnoj prošlosti koja se ne sme izbrisati. Socijalističko društvo je osiguravalo jednakost kao jedan od centralnih principa, makar na nivou teorije i deklarativnih proklamacija. Promovisana je nova žena koja bi trebalo da odbaci sve “staro” i preobrazi se u samostalnu i samosvesnu osobu. Žensko telo i način njegovog predstavljanja uvek su potvrda poretka pa nije slučajno što u prvim posleratnim godinama socijalistička država promoviše ženu novog tipa, u ratu partizanku, a u miru aktivistkinju, snažnu i mišićavu udarnicu bez odlika ženstvenosti koja je osuđivana kao malograđanska i buržoaska. Uplivom masovne kulture i potrošačkog društva, tokom pedesetih i šezdesetih godina, udarnice i heroine rata i rada gotovo neopaženo silaze sa javne scene, ostavljajući mesta za novu idealizovanu sliku stvarnosti i porodične sreće sa novim i sve dostupnijim kozmetičkim proizvodima i kućnim aparatima koji ženu učvršćuju u njenim tradicionalnim rodnim ulogama. Ikonična slika partizanke, ratnice u uniformi, plašila je i same kreatore emancipatorskih ideja, njihove dojučerašnje saborce. Jer kao što kaže Svetlana Slapšak „žena sa oružjem sama bira...“

Da li potiskivanjem, brisanjem, nekritičkim postupcima prema decenijama druge polovine 20. veka možemo očekivati da nam, već sutra, “istorija” ponovo eksplodira u lice? Na to nas svojim radovima upozorava Milica Rakić uvlačeći nas u kritički dijalog provokativnim porukama – preuzetim i prilagođenim citatima iz različitih izvora – pisanim savremenim jezikom. Poigrava se rečima, preplitanjem privatnog sa javnim i političkim, prošlost prevodi u sadašnjost na svoj specifičan način, uz obaveznu dozu humora, kritički promišljajući trenutnu sliku društva. Radovi se sastoje iz statičnih ili pokretnih fotografija pronađenih na internetu i filozofskih, vanvremenskih, često ironičnih i uvek višeznačnih misli koje postavlja u korelaciju sa istorijom i sećanjem, pre svega kolektivnim sećanjem. Spajajući naizgled nespojivo Milica Rakić stvara veze između fotografija i poruka koje uz njih ispisuje i one poprimaju novo značenje jer pamćenje je ono kojem je neophodan narativ da bi se obnavljalo.

Ana Panić

BORN WITHOUT A REASON

The Internal Soliloquy in Personal Encounter with Heroines

We select consciously (or unconsciously) what to remember and what to forget both in our personal and in collective memory. In her work the artist Milica Rakić is occupied with renewing memory by striving against the selective memory. The dialogue with the past never stops, history is being altered and re-written; new heroes, new defenders are in fashion… There are no heroines among them, even though in today’s newspeak according to the valid spelling rules professions and titles of female gender regularly receive the suffixes: –kinja/–ica/–ka in order to fit into the projected picture of pro-European society. Almost emblematic national heroines’ photography is not familiar to the new generations of the “fitness” ideology, because a woman becomes again only a beautiful view for male eyes, merchandise which is to be better sold (married). By restoring the society’s tradition after the wars in the nineties, and by returning the deeply patriarchal model, today, after more than six decades of gaining the right to vote, we are fighting again for the society of equal possibilities under the wing of European values and standards. But, are not these the universal values already achieved by our female ancestors? And why are we ashamed of our own anti-fascist tradition rejecting it as the undesirable legacy?

The exhibition entitled “Born for No Reason” reexamines the relationship towards the recent past which must not be erased. The socialist society ensured equality as one of the central principles, at least at the theoretical level and declarative proclamation. A new woman was promoted who was supposed to reject everything “old” and transform herself into an independent and self-conscious person. Female body and the way of representing it had always been the established order confirmation, so it did not occur by chance that in the first post-war years the socialist country promoted a woman of new type, who was partisan in war, and activist in peace, a strong and muscled shock-worker without any features of femininity who was condemned as provincial and petit bourgeois. With the advent of the mass culture and consumer society during the fifties and eighties, the shock-workers, war and work heroines leave the public scene almost unnoticed, leaving the space for the new idealized picture of reality and family happiness with new and more accessible cosmetics products and home appliances which consolidate a woman in her traditional gender roles . The iconic picture of a partisan, female combatant frightened even the emancipation ideas creators themselves, who were their former fellow soldiers. Because, as Svetlana Slapšak asserts “a woman armed with a weapon chooses for herself”.

Can we expect that “history” bursts into our face already tomorrow by suppressing, erasing and by means of uncritical actions towards the decades of the second half of the twentieth century? Milica Rakić warns us about all that by her art work, and by involving us in the critical dialogue by means of provocative messages – taken over and adapted from different sources – and written in contemporary language. She plays with words, with interwoven public and political issues; she converts the past into the present in her specific manner, with the obligatory dose of humour, critically thinking over the current picture of society. Her art work comprises static and mobile photography, found on the Internet, and philosophical, timeless, often ironic and always ambiguous thoughts which she brings in correlation with history and recollection, and above all the collective memory. By putting together the incompatible, Milica Rakić generates ties between the photography and the accompanying messages, which she writes, and these messages acquire new significance, for the recollection to be renewed requires the necessary narrative.

 Ana Panić

Jelena Ćetković Born on September, 9th 1916, at Cetinje, Montenegro. Dressmaker. Member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia since 1936. She joined the People’s Liberation Struggle in 1941. She was executed by shooting in Banjica in Belgrade on May, 15th 1942. She was publicly proclaimed a war hero on July, 5th 1952. IT IS EASY TO ME I AM A STAR - Olga Ban Born on June, 29th, 1926, in Zarečje, Pazin, Croatia. Dressmaker. She joined the People’s Liberation Struggle in 1941. “One young female member of the Communist Youth League of Yugoslavia does not change ever”. She was executed by shooting in Pazin, on October, 8th 1943. She was publicly proclaimed a war hero on September, 26th 1973. I AM CHRONICALLY ILL DUE TO MISUSE - Persa Bosanac Born on July, 12th 1922, in Čeralije village, Podravska Slatina, Croatia. Housewife. She joined the People’s Liberation Struggle in 1941. She was killed in battle on June, 13th 1943, during the attack on Sirač. She was publicly proclaimed a war hero on July, 23rd 1952. I AM ALWAYS BY YOU, BOTH ALIVE AND DEAD - Nada Dimić Born on September, 8th 1923, in Divoselo, Gospić, Croatia. Pupil. Member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia since 1940. She joined the People’s Liberation Struggle in 1941. She was killed in the camp Stara Gradiška on February, 20th 1942. She was publicly proclaimed a war hero on July, 5th 1951. COSMONAUTS ARE FUCKINGLY HANDSOME - Lizika Jančer Born on October, 27th, in Maribor, Slovenia. Clerk (Student of medicine in Belgrade). Member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia since the end of 1941. She joined the People’s Liberation Struggle in 1941. She was executed by shooting at Bela in Dubrava on March, 20th 1943. She was publicly proclaimed a war hero on November, 27th 1953. I DREAM OF HAVING A COCK INSTEAD OF THE LEFT TEAT - Milka Kufrin Born on October, 15th 1921, in Purgarija, Jastrebarsko county, Croatia. Student of agronomy. Member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia since June in 1941. She joined the People’s Liberation Struggle in 1941. She was publicly proclaimed a war hero on July, 23rd 1953. She died in Zagreb on January 28th 2000. I REFUSE TO EXIST AMONG PEOPLE - Vida Tonšić Born on June, 26th 1913, in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Jurist. Member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia since 1934. She joined the People’s Liberation Struggle in 1941. She was publicly proclaimed a war hero on November, 27th 1953. She died in Ljubljana on December, 10th 1998. BLOOD IS LEAST RECOGNIZABLE ON RED - Vahida Maglajić Born on April, 17th 1907, in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Housewife (President of the organization “Female Movement“). Member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia since 1941. She joined the People’s Liberation Struggle in 1941. She died in Velika Rujiška on April, 1st 1943. She was publicly proclaimed a war hero on December, 20th 1951. I ENTERED THE HISTORY FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE.

You killed the past in the name of an abstract future You killed the bloody future in the name of glorious past What do you want now?