[artinfo] Naming of the Bridge

[by way of Janos Sugar]

Naming of the Bridge  - Rosa Plaveva and Nakie Bajram’

A project by Hristina Ivanoska

Curated by Suzana Milevska

54-56 Great Sutton Street EC1V 0DE

Private view Tuesday 13 June, 6–8pm
Opening Times: 14, 16, 19, 20 June 12-6pm, 15 June 1pm - 7pm, 17, 18 June 2-6pm

The Question of the Veil in the Balkans, Lecture 
by Suzana Milevska, 13 June, 5 pm

The Foundation for Women’s Art is hosting the project Naming of the Bridge
‘Rosa Plaveva and Nakie Bajram’, a three-screen video installation by the
Macedonian artist Hristina Ivanoska. The project is a new work presented
for the first time and focuses on the first women protestors against the
veil in Macedonia: the Macedonian Rosa Plaveva and the Turkish Nakie
Bajram. This is an on-going research project concerning Ivanoska’s
proposal to the local authorities in Skopje about the naming of the newly
built bridge in the centre of the town after the two women who protested
there together. Ivanoska’s concept clearly points to the urgent need to
re-establish the silenced communication between the two strictly divided
parts of the town on either side of the river Vardar; one Macedonian
Orthodox Christian, the other, Albanian Turkish Muslim. The project is a
rare example of an individual initiative that looks at the issue of the
veil with a sensitivity unburdened by the conflicts of the past; an
attempt to build a bridge between the different stances towards the veil
in conflicting intellectual and cultural camps.

On the 13th of June (5-6pm) the curator of the exhibition Dr. Suzana
Milevska is giving a lecture on The Question of the Veil in the Balkans.
In her speech she will address the persistence of the use of the veil and
the ways in which this issue marks cultural, religious and gender
difference with a specific focus on several contemporary art projects by
women artists from the Balkans.

The project is taking place in parallel with the series of events  ‘Art
under Construction: the Balkans in Context’ including lectures, visual art
events, screenings organised by the School of Arts and the School of
Social Sciences, City University, London, in collaboration with Apollonia,
Strasbourg and with the participation of recognised artists, curators and
art critics from France, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, the UK.

For more information see
www.fwa-uk.org
www.city.ac.uk/cpm