003 → Exhibition
17th Gjon Mili Biannial International Exhibition / She Who Starts The Song
curated by Valentine Umansky (Tate Modern) & Hana Halilaj (National Gallery of Kosovo)
National Gallery of Kosovo / January 2025
Danica, Dragica, Duška / or / when Zora, the goddess of Dawn, opens the gates of Heaven for Sun to emerge ( 2025 )
Two-channel Installation, 8mm transfer to HD / 10 min
Radivojević's new work produced for the Gjon Mili International Exhibition revolves around Zora, the Slavic goddess of dawn, whose name appears in various
forms in Slavic folklore. Zora embodies both singular and plural identities. She either appears as one figure or as a triad of sisters representing sunrise, noon,
and sunset— the past, present, and future. Together, they are guardians of time.
The three grandmothers of the artist give their title to the work. In the film, she first summoned Danica, also known as the Morning Star, one of the emblems of Zora.
The goddess is said to dwell in the Palace of the Sun, reigning over the cosmos. In moments of battle, she is believed to lower her veil, shielding favored warriors
from harm. She is then introduced as Dragica, one of her other grandmothers, whom the artist recorded in Zagreb a decade ago, and who passed in May 2024.
Her last avatar is Duška, a common name in the Balkans. In English, it can be translated to spirit or soul.
Radivojević’s work positions Zora as a central figure, presiding over women contemporary warriors and their daily lives. Her film journeys through various landscapes—
by boat, train, and car—pausing periodically to focus on women engaged in everyday activities. These vignettes capture intimate moments: a friend folding clothes at night,
a young woman on her wedding day, one contemplating the sunset, one dancing, or a pregnant friend diving for a swim. Borrowing an ancestral figure, the filmmaker
weaves together ancient and contemporary female warriors.
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MOMus - Museum of Contemporary Art
8th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, curated by Maria-Thalia Carras / March 2023
Enter The Aleph (2023)
Three Channel Installation HD Video / 42min
The main exhibition of the 8th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, titled Being as Communion, is a reflection on co-existence.
Co-existence with those around us and co-existence with the more-than-human, with the critters, forests, with the gardens of our earth,
but also with the shadows of our past, with our dead and with those to come. The exhibition constitutes an attempt to shine a soft light through
the current fog of uncertainty and barrage of dark predictions. It asks whether we can imagine new forms of being, new ways of living,
but with the understanding that we can only truly do so in collaboration. The exhibition traces past artistic practices that envision ways of working with the earth,
create radical pedagogical tools, pioneer ecological activism and broaden the horizon of how we can live together.
Contemporary works foretell multiple forms of communion: with the fragile past of our host city, with forests, with the soil, with animals, and with one another.
Understanding of indeterminacy, the twenty-eight artists and artist collectives taking part in the exhibition probe, question, and offer their responses.
These contain ruptures, seek realignment of injustice and offer tentative understanding, nurturing and care. The artists imagine multiple forms of organizing,
of living and of loving. Being as Communion testifies to the challenges of imagining possible futures for a city so rooted in the past.
Thessaloniki, with its 3000-year-old history, Hellenistic, Roman-Byzantine, Ottoman, contemporary, with all its highlights and failures,
allows for a more expansive understanding of time. How do we talk about living together, of our relationship with futurity, in environments,
and cities whose past ‘togethers’ have all but vanished?’ Being as Communion finds affinities with the ghosts of the city, seeking to live with them
and narrate their stories anew. It calls for a rethinking of the co-existence between living and dead, and with the human-animal-forest-plant world around us.
Being as Communion asks us to take stock of how the living world around us makes us feel, and how we in turn make it feel.
So that in the time we have, we can cherish and celebrate the frictions and joys of mutual living.
Being as Communion unfolds in ten different host sites that function as small exhibition hubs throughout the city of Thessaloniki.
Each site links with a particular period of the city’s history.