Do I have the Right to be Here? (2013 - 2019)

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Collection of paintings, oil on board and canvas.

The process of introspection and questioning. Identification with the body, lack of connection with the physical world, the state of deprivation, incorporation of the world into myself, fear of change, development of internal authority, the right to exist.

Do I have the right to be here?

Dr. Anodea Judith, in her book "Body and Mind, East and West", writes about eastern system of chakras, placing it in the context of jungian psychology, somatic therapy and metaphysics. The Chakra system is a sort of map for understanding the development as well as the template for personal growth and realization of the full potential of the individual.

Focus was on the first chakra, since it is important to the very process of embodiement. The first chakra is located at the base of the spine. The features of the first chakra are: survival, body, confidence, roots, foundation, well-being, family.

In this context, embodiment is not just birth. It also refers to how we fit into a society where we belong or want to belong or be in the physical world.

Therefore, development of character and identity also comes under the notion of embodiment.

People with disabilities are mostly excluded from the terms "person", "identity", "integrity", etc. Perception that prevail is closer to the "thing" but to a person. The right to act, feel, to be loved and the most important - the right to exist is denied or limited.

The bodies of people with disabilities are mostly perceived as lifeless and insignificant, thus abolishing that basic identity, which is the physical one. The body is the first identity we identify ourselves with and on which we continue to develop our identity.

Such bodies are often the object of disgust and fascination. Aversion and discrimination exorcises the spirit that inhabits the body rather than trying to understand it. What remains is the subject deprived of person, deprived of identity.

How to answer the question at all; do I have the right to be here, do I have the right to exist? According to the author, the right to be here implies that we have what is fundamental to be - the basic thing to survive.

Considering the abovementioned and extended definition of embodiment, being in the physical world, for people with disabilities is a struggle for existence. The basic identity, the first one, the primary one, the biological one, the one that makes us real in the physical world, is disrupted, rejected, unacceptable.

Starting point of this reaserch was project HEAVEN (The Head Anastomosis Venture). The realisation of the mentioned project was delayed and changed several times. The project itself is about a head (or body?) transplant.

Idea of the super body touches on the term of Deleuze and Guattari - the body without organs. According to the creators of the term, body without organs is a process of regenerating and repeating, more specifically:desire. BwO (Body wothout organs) is a process of regenerating and repeating of so called desireing machines, as they call the bodies.

Term super body is mostly associated with fitness industry. It is also associated with bodies of heroes, bodies that eventually became super thanks to some damage or deformation that usually came from the outside world (Spiderman, Hulk). Therefore, super occures and is accomplished through some deformation. To be more speciffic, by the deforming of the norm. Super is, then in both examples, fitness heroes as well as heroes of pop culture, desireable deformation. In one example, the first one, more of the exterior nature while in the other example of the super heroes, deformation gives super capacities to the body.

Deformation has its root in latin deformatio: a major difference in the shape of a body part or organ compared to its common or average shape, changes in an object's shape or form due to the application of a force or forces, such changes considered and analyzed as displacements of continuum bodies, a measure of the rate at which the shapes of clouds and other fluid bodies change. Super body is, therefore, a deformed body - its nature is changed.

This project Super body represents a platform for my future reaserch on area of identity and body. I endeavor to define and describe the term super body into an exhisting context of discussion on body.

A habit of finding pleasure in thought rather than action is a safeguard against unwisdom and excessive love of power, a means of preserving serenity in misfortune and peace of mind among worries. A life confined to what is personal is likely, sooner or later, to become unbearably painful; it is only by windows into a larger and less fretful cosmos that the more tragic parts of life become endurable.

                                                                                                                                                                         Bertrand Russell

The work is a portrait of my right hand, that is, of my right fist.

I chose the motif of a fist so that I could always have something, a motif to paint, and also because it is the only subject within a predetermined and even imposed space that is always with me. Namely, it was necessary to choose a motif that was not under any outside influences.

For that reason I constrict the motif to a subject and build a whole with repetition. My intention was to remove any kind of characteristic that color gives out and draw attention strictly to form, structure, subject, experience and gesture.

The work was presented at the 1st May Incubator, Decumanus Gallery in Krk, Croatia, 2018 and at the 1st Student Biennale, “Selfportarit” Waldinger Gallery in Osijek, Croatia, 2015.

The video with the duration of one minute, is a documentation of a performance piece. After the performance, the work was transformed into an installation within a space with an empty wheelchair. A drawing was made using the wheelchair on a base of flour.

The title, 25-540 (24x1) HS 228, indicates the size of the wheelchair tires.

The performance took place at the final student exhibition at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, on July 2nd 2014.

My intention was to speak up about the sensibility for and towards differences, in a way segragate it, emphasize it and put it in a dialogue with the surroundings as an example here I put in relation a disability and an exhibition space more precisely, it was an already established relationship. The space that already demands a different approach.

The best solution showed to be an intervention within the space with which I can accomplish the wanted interaction with the environment in the easiest way. With that, the performance that was initially created as an installation piece transformatively takes on a new form.

The installation consists of an empty wheelchair placed in the middle of a separate field.

The installation has been developing over time, it changed form over the course of the exhibition. People who did not notice the installation would accidentally step into it and move away only after someone else's warning.

I do not see the behaviour of the visitors, those who did and those who did not step onto the installation as something good or bad, but as a response to the subject sensibility for and towards differences. The sensibility of the people stands out as soon as something out of the ordinary is put into the spotlight.

The work was exhibited at The Art of Creation at Patchogue Arts Council in New York, USA, 2018. and at the 1st May Incubator, Decumanus Gallery in Krk, Croatia in the same year. This work was also presented at the Artbox.Project Basel 1.0, Euroairport Basel, Basel - Swiss side, 2017 and at the Diversity of Voices ESSL MUSEUM, Klosterneuburg, Austria, 2015.

This series, that is, the work, depicts allegories of different states and moods. The work was designed to be an art journal, a search of identity, personal notes with which I limit my field of work on research from the very start.

The format of a puzzle came to me naturally. Given that I paint with my mouth, a smaller format is closer to the range of movement of the head and neck, and by combining these smaller sections I have put together a bigger format. That way, I made it possible for myself to make a fashionable big-scale work which is otherwise off-limits for me.

The work was exhibited at the ESSL Museum, Klosterneuburg, Austria, on behalf of ESSL ART AWARD CEE 2015, under the title of the exhibition Diversity of Voices.

Link for more: http://sammlung-essl.at

The work is now part of the ESSL collection and was exhibited at the Body and Soul exhibition at the same Museum, 2016.

The work was also presented at the 32nd Youth Salon, under the title of the exhibition 'Venientes' in Zagreb, 2014.