2021 - Elma Cavcic

Ljubavni Sudar

Collaboration with Jovana Štulić

Duo Solo Show January 19th – February 11th 2022

Kunstruimte H47, Leeuwarden, 2022

In autumn of 2020 we started the collaboration based on our shared desire to find the balance between the two cultures in which we grew up. Elma Čavčić, who fled Bosnia in the 1990s with her family, and Jovana Štulić, who was born in the Netherlands, 2nd generation of Serbian guest workers in the late 1960s.

Ljubavni Sudar is an indirect reference to the disintegration of former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, when the states of Serbia and Bosnia came to face each other. Although the war is not directly a theme in our collaboration, it is an important wink in the ‘clash’ that our collaboration has brought about. The title translates freely to ‘a loving crash;’ The name of the exhibition is derived from the Centerpiece; the large painting in which two girls are connected through a telephone line. The painting bears the same title as the exhibition, translated in English as Romancing Collision.

The starting point of the collaboration was an analog photo that Jovana took to the very first meeting in Elma’s studio in Utrecht. In the photo you see two cars collide in a crash. This was the starting point to start making work. The collision symbolizes the two worlds in which we both grew up, but also the two worlds of former Yugoslavia.

The experimental collaboration came about after a meeting in which we found many similarities and interest in each other and each other’s work. The work was created with the aim of gaining new insights and challenging each other within the theme of melancholy and nostalgia for the past. The longing, the homesickness that comes with growing up between two cultures and countries is the driving force of our work and our collaboration. By challenging each other to adopt new positions with regard to the themes, several works have been created that reinforce the narrative.